THE    ROMANCE    OF 
AMERICAN   EXPANSION 


THE    ROMANCE    OF 
AMERICAN    EXPANSION 


BY 


H.  ADDINGTON   BRUCE 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD    fcf    COMPANY 
1909 


Copyright,  1909,  by 

MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


All  rights  reserved 

' 

PUBLISHED,  MARCH,  1909 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass.  US. A. 


ANDREW  JACKSON 
From  a  painting  by  John  Vanderlyn  in  the  Council  Chamber,  City  Hall,  New  York. 


£0 
MY    WIFE 

TO  WHOSE  STIMULATING  COUNSEL  AND 

DISCRIMINATING    CRITICISM    THIS 

VOLUME,    LIKE     ALL     MY 

LITERARY  ENDEAVOR, 

OWES    MUCH 


190902 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

PREFACE xi 

I    DANIEL  BOONE  AND  THE  OPENING  UP  OF  THE  WEST     .  i 

II    THOMAS  JEFFERSON  AND  THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE       .  24 

III  ANDREW  JACKSON  AND  THE  ACQUISITION  or  FLORIDA    .  51 

IV  SAM  HOUSTON  AND  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS  ...  78 
V    THOMAS  HART  BENTON  AND  THE  OCCUPATION  OF  OREGON  106 

VI     JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  AND  THE  CONQUEST  OF  CALI 
FORNIA    136 

VII    WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  AND  THE  ALASKA  CESSION      .  166 

VIII    WILLIAM  MCK.INLEY  AND  THE  TRANSMARINE  POSSESSIONS  187 

IX    HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING 211 

INDEX 239 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


ANDREW  JACKSON Frontispiece 

From  a  painting  b\ 
City  Hall,  New  York. 


From  a  painting  by  John  Vanderlyn  in  the  Council  Chamber, 

"",  Ne- 


DANIEL  BOONE 4 

From  the  statue  by  Enid  Yandell. 

DANIEL  BOONE  AT  EIGHTY-FIVE 18 

From  the  only  contemporary  portrait  of  Boonc,  a  painting  made 
by  Chester  Harding  in  1819. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 26 

From  a  crayon  drawing,  now  in  the  possession  of  Dr.  W.  C.  N. 
Randolph,  of  Charlottesville,  Virginia,  the  great-grandson  of 
Jefferson. 

THE  SIGNING  OF  THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  TREATY    ....       48 
From  the  commemorative  statue  at  the  St.  Louis  Exposition. 

THE  HERMITAGE,  JACKSON'S  HOME  IN  TENNESSEE     ....       60 
From  an  old  lithograph  by  Pendleton. 


SAM  HOUSTON 88 

From  a  portrait  painted  by  F.  B.  Carpenter  in  1855,  and  now 
owned  by  Mr.  Clarence  W.  Bowen,  New  York. 


STEPHEN  AUSTIN 98 

From  a  portrait  in  the  possession  of  the  Texas  Historical  Society. 

CAPITOL  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  OF  TEXAS 104 

Photographed  by  J.  B.  Walker,  from  a  crayon  sketch  owned  by 
J.  P.  Underwood. 

THOMAS  HART  BENTON 118 

From  a  portrait  in  the  possession  of  the   Missouri   Historical 
Society. 


x  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT 144 

MONTEREY  IN  ITS  EARLY  DAYS 154 

From  an  old  print. 

WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD 170 

From  a  photograph  loaned  by  his  son  Frederick  W.  Seward. 

THE  SIGNING  OF  THE  ALASKAN  TREATY 182 

From  a  painting  by  Leutze. 

WILLIAM  MCKINLEY 190 

GEORGE  DEWEY  206 


PREFACE 

THE  aim  of  this  volume  is  to  give  a  brief,  yet 
sufficiently  comprehensive,  account  of  the  terri 
torial  growth  of  the  United  States,  with  especial 
reference  to  the  achievements  of  the  men  —  Daniel 
Boone,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Andrew  Jackson,  Sam 
Houston,  Thomas  Hart  Benton,  John  Charles 
Fremont,  William  Henry  Seward,  and  William 
McKinley  —  who  were  pre-eminent  among  their 
contemporaries  in  each  of  the  forward  steps  in  the 
movement  from  sea  to  sea.  By  thus  emphasizing 
the  personal  element  it  is  hoped  not  merely  to 
enhance  the  interest  of  the  narrative,  but  still 
more  to  afford  a  clear  view  of  the  true  nature  of  the 
American  advance. 

It  was  no  fortuitous  development.  Its  roots 
struck  back  to  the  early  colonization  of  America, 
and  it  was  the  logical  result  of  the  genesis,  on  a 
largely  unoccupied  continent,  of  an  exceptionally 
virile,  progressive,  and  ambitious  nation.  The  in 
stincts  and  needs  of  that  nation  irresistibly  impelled 
it  to  territorial  enlargement.  It  did  not  always 


xii  PREFACE 

expand  without  conflict  with  other  nations.  Yet 
its  record,  however  sharply  scrutinized,  is  singu 
larly  free  from  blemish.  Even  the  so-called  spolia 
tion  of  Mexico  proves,  on  close  examination,  by  no 
means  so  blameworthy  as  has  generally  been  be 
lieved.  From  beginning  to  end  there  is  little  to 
regret  and  much  to  admire  in  the  story  of  American 
expansion. 

Those  who  desire  to  make  a  more  detailed  study 
than  is  possible  here,  are  advised  to  consult  the 
works  enumerated  in  the  critical  bibliography  con 
tained  in  the  closing  chapter.  Without  attempting 
to  cover  the  subject  fully  —  a  really  impossible 
task  in  view  of  the  immensity  of  its  literature  —  an 
effort  has  been  made  to  include  some  mention  of 
all  the  most  helpful  and  generally  accessible  pub 
lications  relating  to  the  different  acquisitions.  Ref 
erences  will  also  be  found  to  biographies  and  other 
books  dealing  with  the  lives  of  the  men  who  were 
most  conspicuously  associated  with  these  acqui 
sitions  as  leaders  and  instruments  in  executing  the 
national  will. 

This  work,  I  should  add,  was  originally  prepared 
for  publication  as  a  serial  in  The  Outlook,  and  I  am 
under  a  special  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  editors  of 
that  periodical  for  permission  to  reproduce  a  num- 


PREFACE  xiii 

ber  of  the  excellent  illustrations  which  were  used 
in  connection  with  its  serial  publication.  I  also 
wish  to  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  to  Prof. 
Edward  Channing,  of  Harvard  University,  for  help 
ful  suggestions;  to  Mr.  Charles  G.  Bennett,  Secre 
tary  of  the  United  States  Senate,  for  generously 
providing  me  with  necessary  documents;  and  to 
the  officials  of  Harvard  University  Library,  par 
ticularly  Mr.  Thomas  J.  Kiernan,  for  kindly  and 
cordial  co-operation  in  placing  at  my  disposal  Har 
vard's  rich  collection  of  source  material  for  the  study 
of  American  history. 

H.  ADDINGTON  BRUCE. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS. 
February,  1909. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


THE     ROMANCE    OF    AMERICAN 
EXPANSION 

CHAPTER  I 

DANIEL  BOONE  AND  THE  OPENING  UP  OF  THE  WEST 

/' 

T^ROM  the  strictly  political  point  of  view,  the 
story  of  the  territorial  expansion  of  the  United 
States  begins  with  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  the 
first  acquisition  of  new  land  by  the  youthful  Repub 
lic.  But  precedent  to  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  and 
rendering  it  inevitable,  was  an  earlier  movement 
set  on  foot  while  as  yet  the  United  States  existed 
only  in  the  imagination  of  a  few  prophetic  souls 
who  looked  forward  with  buoyant  hopes  to  the 
moment  when  the  British  colonies  in  the  New  World 
might  become  free  to  work  out  their  destiny  for 
themselves.  From  this  movement,  indeed,  resulted 
not  only  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  but  all  those  other 
forward  steps  by  which,  within  the  space  of  less 
than  a  century,  the  American  people  obtained 
dominion  from  ocean  to  ocean;  and  in  this  move 
ment  is  to  be  found,  in  no  small  measure,  the  expla 
nation  of  the  unparalleled  rapidity  with  which  the 


2        ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

vast  intervening  territory  was  settled  and  developed. 
If  it  gave  an  irresistible  impulse  to  territorial  ex 
tension,  it  likewise  quickened  and  strengthened 
national  characteristics  without  which  territorial 
extension  would  not  have  been  worth  while.  Knowl 
edge  of  it  is  indispensable  to  a  correct  understand 
ing  of  the  country's  growth. 

It  began,  roughly  speaking,  about  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Then,  for  the  first  time 
and  after  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
of  occupation,  the  colonists  whose  homes  dotted 
the  coastal  region  from  Canada  to  the  Floridas 
bent  their  way  to  the  mysterious  and  unknown 
wilderness  lying  beyond  the  mountains  that  had 
so  long  marked  their  western  boundary.  Hitherto 
they  had  felt  neither  need  nor  desire  to  pass  the 
barrier  thrown  up  by  nature;  had,  rather,  clung 
instinctively  to  the  narrow  strip  of  land  bordering 
the  watery  waste  that  separated  them  from  the 
mother  country.  Here  they  had  made  clearings, 
created  farm  and  plantation,  built  cabin  and  fort, 
village  and  town,  always  within  easy  reach  if  not 
within  sight  and  sound  of  the  sea.  But  now,  under 
the  pressure  of  economic  stress  and  the  hidden  yet 
all-powerful  influence  of  environment,  they  had 
acquired  new  standpoints,  new  yearnings,  new  char- 


DANIEL   BOONE  3 

acteristics.  Long  years  of  successful  battling  with 
the  forest  and  the  savage  had  bred  in  them  alert 
ness,  resourcefulness,  self-reliance,  and  boundless 
optimism.  Although  they  could  not  know  it,  the 
New  World  had  given  birth  to  a  new  nation.  They 
chafed  under  the  limitations  imposed  by  the  home 
Government,  they  chafed  still  more  under  the  lim 
itations  of  a  territory  which  they  had  outgrown. 
Thence,  as  the  spirit  of  independence  and  daring 
increased,  arose  the  determination  to  press  forward 
and  master  and  occupy  the  transmontane  wilder 
ness.  It  mattered  not  that  this  was  the  home  of 
warlike  tribes  who  would  be  certain  to  contest  their 
coming.  Passage  of  the  mountains  and  possession 
of  the  country  beyond  they  must  have.  They  only 
awaited  a  pilot  to  point  out  the  way. 

Such  a  pilot  they  found  in  Daniel  Boone.  Boone, 
it  is  true,  was  by  no  means  the  first  American  to 
cross  the  mountains  and  explore  the  fertile  Missis 
sippi  Valley.*  But  it  was  not  until  he  opened  the 
famous  Wilderness  Road  that  any  systematic  at 
tempt  at  migration  and  colonization  was  made. 

*  The  names  of  the  most  important  of  Boone's  predecessors  will 
be  found  in  R.  G.  Thwaites's  "France  in  America"  (vol.  VII,  p.  40,  of 
the  "American  Nation"  co-operative  history  of  the  United  States),  and 
in  the  same  author's  "Daniel  Boone,"  pp.  85-88.  A  useful  work  on 
this  subject  is  J.  S.  Johnston's  "First  Explorations  of  Kentucky,"  issued 
as  No.  13  of  the  Filson  Club's  publications. 


4        ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Then,  as  by  magic,  a  great  tide  of  humanity  surged 
forward,  following  the  channel  he  had  cut,  and, 
after  an  outward  rush  of  hundreds  of  miles,  spread 
ing  itself  through  the  timber-lands  and  grass-lands 
of  what  has  since  become  known  to  us  as  the  Middle 
West.  By  this  hard  and  narrow  path,  so  narrow 
that  he  who  traversed  it  must  do  so  afoot  or  on 
horseback,  the  immigrants  poured  in;  and,  other 
currents  presently  setting  by  mountain  pass  and 
river  route,  the  entire  valley,  formerly  the  habitat 
of  the  roving  red  man,  soon  echoed  to  the  ring  of 
the  woodsman's  ax,  heralding  the  establishment  of 
civilization.  Here  was  an  expansion  movement  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  term.  Not  rashful  venturing 
or  crude  lust  for  gold  had  prompted  the  mighty 
exodus,  but  an  all-absorbing  desire  to  settle  and 
cultivate  and  upbuild.  Cleaving  steadfastly  to 
this  ideal,  the  colonists,  like  their  fathers  before 
them,  and  overcoming  even  greater  obstacles,  la 
bored  so  manfully  and  so  wisely  that,  long  before  the 
death  of  their  pathfinder,  the  rich  region  to  which 
his  Wilderness  Road  gave  access  had  become  the 
seat  of  prosperous  commonwealths,  partners  in  the 
Union  born  of  the  heroic  War  for  Independence. 

All  this  Boone  saw,  in  all  this  he  shared,  and  not 
without  reason  did  he  declare  in  his  old  age  that  the 


DANIEL  BOONE 

From  the  statue  by  Enid  Yandell. 


DANIEL   BOONE  5 

history  of  the  settlement  of  the  western  country  was 
his  history.  His  entire  career  mirrored  faithfully 
the  sentiments,  the  sacrifices,  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
empire-builders  to  whom  he  opened  the  gateway  to 
the  Mississippi;  and  from  his  earliest  youth  he  was 
an  incarnation  of  the  restless  longing,  the  eager 
daring,  the  unconquerable  resolution,  and  the  sub 
lime  faith  that  carried  the  sons  of  those  empire- 
builders  from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Pacific  and1 
beyond.  By  birth,  training,  and  environment  he 
was  well  fitted  for  the  great  task  to  which  destiny 
had  appointed  him.  Born  of  a  pioneer  Pennsyl 
vania  family,  he  first  saw  the  light  of  day  in  a  fron 
tier  settlement.*  He  was  cradled  to  the  whispering 
of  the  forest  trees  and  the  singing  of  the  birds  that 
flitted  through  their  branches;  and  from  the  mo 
ment  that  he  was  old  enough  to  walk,  the  forest 
never  called  to  him  in  vain.  As  a  boy  it  was  his 
delight  to  wander  from  the  open  fields,  past  the 
cordon  of  blackened  stumps  that  marked  the  edge 
of  the  clearing,  and  on  into  the  primeval  depths, 
there  to  study  the  ways  of  nature  and  lay  the  foun- 

*  Boone  was  the  son  of  Squire  and  Sarah  Boone,  both  of  whom  were 
Quakers,  his  father  being  an  emigrant  from  Devonshire,  his  mother 
of  Welsh  extraction.  He  was  born  (November  2,  1734)  in  the  township  of 
Oley,  Berks  County,  on  a  farm  a  few  miles  from  the  present  city  of 
Reading,  and  was  the  fourth  son  and  sixth  child  in  a  family  of  eleven 
children. 


6        ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

dations  of  his  after  mastery  of  woodcraft.  As  a  boy, 
too,  he  became  an  adept  with  the  rifle,  and  soon 
assumed  the  congenial  task  of  supplying  the  family 
with  meat.  Herding  in  the  summer,  hunting  in 
the  winter,  each  succeeding  year  left  him  more 
keen,  more  self-reliant,  more  vigorous,  and  more 
enamored  of  the  joys  of  the  open. 

A  new  chapter,  but  not  unlike  the  old,  began 
when,  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  he  migrated  with  his 
parents  to  the  fair  lands  of  the  Yadkin  Valley  in 
the  northwest  corner  of  North  Carolina.  Here  were 
fertile  fields  for  farming,  luxuriant  meadows  for 
grazing,  and  a  wilderness  with  an  abundance  and 
a  variety  of  game  that  far  exceeded  Boone's  experi 
ence  in  the  older  country.  Here,  also,  as  he  soon 
discovered,  was  the  material  for  romance,  and,  with 
an  ardor  that  could  not  be  gainsaid,  he  wooed 'the 
maiden  of  his  choice.*  But  life  was  not  all  hunting, 

*  Boone's  wife  was  Rebecca  Bryan,  a  daughter  of  Joseph  Bryan,  who, 
like  the  Boones,  had  migrated  from  Pennsylvania  to  North  Carolina. 
Boone  was  twenty-one  and  Rebecca  seventeen  when  they  were  married, 
and  an  interesting  description  of  their  appearance  at  the  time  of  their 
wedding  is  quoted  by  Dr.  Thwaites  from  an  account  written  by  a  border 
historian  who  had  made  a  close  study  of  the  family  traditions:  "Behold 
that  young  man  exhibiting  such  unusual  firmness  and  energy  of  charac 
ter,  five  feet  eight  inches  in  height,  with  broad  chest  and  shoulders,  his 
form  gradually  tapering  downward  to  his  extremities;  his  hair  mod 
erately  black;  blue  eyes  arched  with  yellowish  eyebrows;  his  lips  thin, 
with  a  mouth  peculiarly  wide;  a  countenance  fair  and  ruddy,  with  a 
nose  a  little  bordering  on  the  Roman  order.  Such  was  Daniel  Boone, 


DANIEL  BOONE  7 

dancing,  love-making.  Sterner  duties  had  to  be 
performed.  There  was  the  necessity  of  bread  win 
ning,  and  there  was  the  necessity  of  guarding  the 
cabin  home  from  the  sudden  attack  of  the  Indian 
roused  at  last  to  fury  by  the  wily  counsels  of  his 
French  allies.  The  war-cloud  that  for  seven  years 
was  to  engulf  the  continent  had  already  begun  to 
gather,  and  with  an  anxious  eye  Boone  and  his 
fellows  watched  its  approach.  The  news  that  the 
French  were  drawing  nearer,  were  even  building 
forts  on  land  claimed  by  the  British  colonies,  grated 
harshly  on  their  ears;  and  when  the  more  welcome 
tidings  came  that  a  punitive  expedition  was  to  set 
forth,  there  was  no  lack  of  volunteers. 

Thus  it  happened  that  Braddock's  ill-fated  army, 
which  held  in  its  ranks  the  immortal  Washington, 
held  another  great  American,  Daniel  Boone.  And 
Boone,  like  Washington,  survived  the  carnage  of 

now  past  twenty-one,  presenting  altogether  a  noble,  manly,  prepossess 
ing  appearance.  .  .  .  Rebecca  Bryan,  whose  brow  had  now  been  fanned 
by  the  breezes  of  seventeen  summers,  was,  like  Rebecca  of  old,  'very 
fair  to  look  upon,'  with  jet-black  hair  and  eyes,  complexion  rather  dark, 
and  something  over  the  common  size  of  her  sex;  her  whole  demeanor 
expressive  of  her  childlike  artlessness,  pleasing  in  her  address,  and 
unaffectedly  kind  in  all  her  deportment.  Never  was  there  a  more 
gentle,  forbearing  creature  than  this  same  youthful  bride  of  the  Yad- 
kin."  (From  R.  G.  Thwaites's  "Daniel  Boone,"  pp.  25-26.)  Rebecca 
Boone  brought  up  a  large  family  of  children,  faithfully  followed  her 
husband  in  his  many  wanderings,  and  may  well  be  regarded  as  a  typical 
mother  of  the  early  West. 


8        ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

that  fearful  day.  Out  of  his  baptism  of  fire  he 
emerged  a  man,  with  all  the  trivialities  of  youth  put 
far  behind  him.  The  year  after  Braddock's  defeat 
saw  him  active  in  the  futile  defense  of  the  frontier 
posts,  now  threatened  by  the  Indians  of  the  South. 
One  by  one  the  settlements  were  deserted,  as  the 
backwoods  folk  gradually  lost  hope  and  fled  to  the 
communities  nearer  the  sea;  and  in  time,  though  not 
until  their  case  seemed  desperate,  the  Boones  fled 
too,  locating  in  tide-water  Virginia.  Then,  as  the 
war  still  raged,  the  husband  and  father  —  for  such 
Boone  now  was  —  hurried  back  to  the  wilderness, 
reaching  it  in  time  to  take  part  in  the  campaign  that 
compelled  the  Indians  to  sue  for  peace.  His  had 
been  a  bloody  apprenticeship,  but  no  less  than  the 
youthful  years  of  roving  it  served  him  well  for  the 
work  he  was  yet  to  do. 

On  this  work  he  did  not  definitely  enter  until  six 
years  after  the  great  war  had  come  to  an  end  and 
the  pretensions  of  France  to  New  World  supremacy 
had  been  forever  blotted  out  by  the  battle  of  Quebec. 
Meanwhile,  having  brought  his  family  back  to  the 
Yadkin,  he  spent  his  time  much  as  of  old,  farming 
and  hunting.  But  now  his  hunts  were  longer 
than  before.  The  pressing  of  the  frontier  towards 
the  mountains,  the  clearing  of  the  forest,  and  the 


DANIEL  BOONE  9 

increased  number  of  those  who  joined  in  the  chase, 
had  driven  the  denizens  of  the  wilds  to  take  refuge 
with  their  remoter  brethren  on  the  far  side  of  the 
rocky  fastnesses.  To  the  dauntless  Boone,  how 
ever,  the  new  difficulties  and  perils  only  added  to 
the  joys  of  hunting.  Peak  after  peak  he  scaled,  and 
the  farther  the  game  retreated  the  farther  he  pur 
sued,  only  returning  when  his  rifle  had  won  him  a 
goodly  store  of  meat  and  furs.  Unconsciously,  but 
inevitably,  he  became  inspired  with  the  curiosity 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  explorer.  As  ridge  upon 
ridge  and  forest  after  forest  unfolded  before  him  in 
glorious  panorama,  there  rose  unbidden  the  ques 
tion  of  what  lay  beyond  and  the  spontaneous  but 
overpowering  desire  to  go  and  find. 

It  needed  only  a  gentle  stimulus  to  send  him  on 
a  journey  of  discovery,  and  this  stimulus  was  sup 
plied  by  the  arrival  in  the  Yadkin  Valley  of  a  whilom 
fur  trader,  John  Finley,  or  Findlay,  who  in  years 
gone  by  had  ranged  all  through  the  hidden  land. 
To  Boone  and  his  scarcely  less  eager  neighbors 
Finley  described  a  country  —  which  he  called  Ken 
tucky  —  watered  by  magnificent  streams,  garbed  in 
a  marvelously  luxurious  herbage,  splendidly  tim 
bered,  and  abounding  in  all  sorts  of  game.  It  was, 
to  be  sure,  a  dark  and  bloody  ground,  a  no-man's 


io      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

land,  over  which  hostile  tribes  hunted  and  warred. 
But  its  exploration  would  well  repay  the  risks  in 
volved,  and  he  assured  them  that  he  knew  a  path 
leading  to  it  —  a  path  scarce  deserving  of  the  name, 
but  still  a  path.  Now  followed  days  and  nights  of 
story-telling  and  discussion,  and  soon  a  little  band 
of  frontiersmen -- only  six,  including  Finley  — 
had  pledged  themselves  to  make  the  long  pil 
grimage. 

May  Day,  £769  — a  date  memorable  in  the  annals 
of  American  expansion  —  they  left  their  homes,  and, 
crossing  in  turn  the  Blue  Ridge  and  Stone  and  Iron 
Mountains,  made  their  way  to  Powell's  Valley,  at 
that  time  the  farthest  limit  of  white  habitation. 
Thence,  under  Finley's  skilful  guidance,  they  passed 
to  Cumberland  Gap,  and  through  the  gap  by  a 
hunter's  trail,  which  finally  brought  them  to  the  so- 
called  warrior's  trail.  Following  this,  and  journey 
ing  leisurely,  they  reached  a  small  tributary  of  the 
Kentucky  River,  and  here  —  perhaps  because  of 
the  beauty  of  the  surrounding  country  —  they  estab 
lished  their  camp.  Boone's  autobiography,  dic 
tated,  in  substance  if  not  in  form,  to  the  Kentucky 
historian,  John  Filson,  is  rich  in  passages  revealing 
the  profound  impression  made  on  him  and  his  fellows 
by  the  novelty  and  picturesqueness  of  the  scenes 


DANIEL  BOONE  n 

in  which  the  party  found  themselves.*  But  they 
were  not  sentimentalists.  They  were  rugged,  hardy 
backwoodsmen,  who  had  come  to  hunt  and  ex 
plore.  And  they  were  speedily  disillusioned  of 
any  idea  that  the  western  paradise  was  without 
its  evils. 

Hunting  one  day  with  his  brother-in-law,  John 
Stuart,  Boone  was  surprised  by  a  band  of  Shawnee 
Indians,  and,  with  Stuart,  was  compelled  to  lead 
them  to  the  camp,  where  the  others  were  like 
wise  made  prisoners.  Everything  they  possessed  - 
horses,  rifles,  ammunition,  furs,  supplies  —  was 
taken  from  them,  and  they  were  then  released  with 
just  enough  provisions  to  carry  them  back  to  the 
settlements.  They  were  warned  that  they  were 
trespassers  in  a  country  which  belonged  exclusively 
to  the  red  men,  and  that  did  they  venture  into  it 
again  their  lives  would  pay  the  penalty.  To  most 
of  them  the  hint  was  quite  sufficient  and  they  hur- 

*  For  instance,  Filson  records  Boone  as  saying:  "One  day  I  under 
took  a  tour  through  the  country,  and  the  diversity  and  beauties  of 
nature  I  met  with  in  this  charming  season,  expelled  every  gloomy  and  vex 
atious  thought.  Just  at  the  close  of  day  the  gentle  gales  retired  and 
left  the  place  to  the  disposal  of  a  profound  calm.  Not  a  breeze  shook 
the  most  tremulous  leaf.  I  had  gained  the  summit  of  a  commanding 
ridge,  and,  looking  round  with  astonishing  delight,  beheld  the  ample 
plains,  the  beauteous  tracts  below.  ...  In  such  a  diversity  it  was  im 
possible  I  should  be  disposed  to  melancholy.  No  populous  city,  with 
all  the  varieties  of  commerce  and  stately  structures,  could  afford  so 
much  pleasure  to  my  mind  as  the  beauties  of  nature  I  found  here." 


12      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

riedly  started  East,  but  Boone  and  Stuart,  enraged 
at  the  thought  of  going  home  empty -handed,  refused 
to  accompany  the  others,  trailed  the  Shawnees,  and 
actually  succeeded  in  recovering  some  of  their  prop 
erty.  Now,  however,  they  in  their  turn  were  trailed 
and  once  more  captured.  An  anxious  week  fol 
lowed  before  Boone 's  native  cunning  contrived  a 
way  of  escape. 

Even  then  he  lingered  in  Kentucky,  nothing 
daunted  by  the  flight  of  Finley  and  the  rest,  nor  by 
the  tragic  death  of  Stuart,  shot  soon  afterwards  by 
some  lurking  Indian.  Without  so  much  as  a  dog 
to  bear  him  company  he  still  roved  and  hunted 
and  explored.  For  him  solitude  in  the  wilderness 
held  no  terrors;  to  him,  as  he  trod  the  verdant  car 
pet  beneath  the  arching  trees,  it  was  no  wilderness, 
but  a  land  of  promise.  Already,  we  may  easily  im 
agine,  he  had  reached  the  resolution  to  recross  the 
distant  mountains  only  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
out  his  wife  and  children  and  carving  for  them  a  new 
home  in  this  pleasant  country  where  all  nature 
seemed  to  smile.  True  prototype  of  the  bold  indi 
vidualism  that  had  already  entered  into  the  Amer 
ican  blood,  he  felt  an  abiding  self-confidence  and 
independence,  and  asked  no  odds  of  any  man. 
What  though  the  farthest  bound  of  civilization  lay 


DANIEL  BOONE  13 

far  behind  him?  It  must  surely  be  advanced,  and 
he  would  advance  not  with  but  before  it. 

Willingly  would  we  follow  this  unlettered,  rough, 
uncouth,  leather-  stockinged  forerunner  of  the  coming 
age  in  his  solitary  wanderings  and  in  the  adventures 
that  befell  him,  when,  having  returned  to  the  Yad- 
kin,  he  found  himself  involved  in  another  Indian 
war.  But  we  must  hasten  to  the  moment  of  his 
reappearance  in  Kentucky,  no  longer  as  a  member 
of  a  small  exploring  party,  but  as  guide  to  a  deter 
mined  company  of  pioneers.*  It  was  fitting,  in 
truth,  that  the  palisaded  settlement  which  they 
located  near  the  Kentucky  River  should  be  named 
Boonesborough  ;  and  fitting  also  that,  as  he  often 
proudly  asserted,  his  wife  and  daughters  should  be 
the  first  white  women  to  stand  on  the  banks  of  that 
stream. 

He  had,  however,  brought  his  loved  ones  to  a 
life  far  harder  than  even  the  stern  existence  that  had 


*  It  was  then  (March-April,  i££l)  that  the  Wilderness  Road  was 
opened  by  Boone  and  a  party  of  thirty  expert  woodsmen  whom  he  had 
engaged  in  the  interest  of  the  Transylvania  Company,  organized  by  a 
number  of  wealthy  North  Carolinians  for  the  purpose  of  colonizing 
Kentucky.  One  of  the  party,  Felix  Walker,  has  left  a  statement  giving 
a  brief  account  of  the  building  of  the  famous  road,  and  showing  plainly 
the  hardships  and  perils  overcome  by  the  roadmakers.  This  statement 
is  printed  as  an  appendix  to  George  W.  Ranck's  "Boonesborough," 
one  of  the  best  of  the  exceedingly  useful  Filson  Club  publications.  See 
also  Thomas  Speed's  "The  Wilderness  Road,"  and  A.  B.  Hulbert's 
"Boone's  Wilderness  Road." 


i4      ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

been  their  lot  before.  "  Brothers,"  said  one  of  the 
chieftains  with  whom  the  settlers  had  bargained  for 
their  land,  "it  is  a  goodly  country  we  give  you,  but 
we  fear  you  will  not  find  it  easy  to  hold."  This 
prediction  was  justified  from  the  outset.  Added 
to  the  natural  difficulties  incidental  to  the  occupa 
tion  of  a  virgin  territory  was  the  implacable  hostil 
ity  of  the  tribes  who  with  reason  feared  this  inva 
sion  of  their  hunting  grounds.  Boonesborough, 
like  the  other  settlements  now  forming,  was  soon  a 
center  of  savage  warfare.  The  colonist,  venturing 
from  the  shelter  of  the  friendly  stockade,  did  so 
with  the  knowledge  that  his  life  might  be  the  price 
of  his  daring.  The  woods  about  teemed  with  red 
men,  who,  fortunately  for  the  pioneers,  lacked  the 
strategic  power  that  would  have  given  them  easy 
mastery.  As  it  was,  and  despite  this  ever-present 
menace,  the  men  from  the  East  not  merely  held 
their  ground,  but  steadily  received  recruits  ready, 
like  themselves,  to  face  all  perils  for  the  sake  of  a 
home  where,  as  Boone  tersely  phrased  it,  they  would 
have  elbow  room  and  breathing  space. 

It  is  a  grim  but  not  wholly  unattractive  picture 
that  has  come  down  to  us  of  the  life  the  pathfinder 
and  his  comrades  led,  and  a  picture  that  affords  a 
clearer  understanding  of  the  results  that  have  flowed 


DANIEL  BOONE  15 

from  this  eighteenth-century  migration.  It  was 
not  all  hunting  and  fighting,  although  hunting  and 
fighting  were  long  its  most  conspicuous  elements. 
There  were  times,  which  became  more  frequent 
and  of  greater  duration  as  the  colonies  were  strength 
ened,  when  the  Indian  withdrew  completely;  and 
in  such  times  the  work  of  cultivation  went  on  apace. 
So  soon  as  safety  permitted ,  and  often  before  it  was 
really  safe,  there  were  dispersals  from  the  parent 
settlements.  It  was  every  man's  ambition  to  have 
a  piece  of  land  that  he  could  call  his  own;  and, 
being  usually  an  agriculturist,  it  was  his  desire  to  have 
at  least  as  large  a  holding  as  he  and  his  children 
could  work.  Under  the  powerful  stimulation  of 
this  twofold  ideal  of  owning  and  working,  great 
openings  appeared  where  before  had  been  unbroken 
forest,  and  the  haunts  of  the  buffalo  and  the  deer 
were  transformed  into  plowed  fields  and  profitable 
pastures.  Resting  his  rifle  against  a  convenient 
stump,  eye  and  ear  alert  for  the  least  untoward 
sight  or  sound,  the  pioneer  pressed  the  advantage 
his  hardihood  had  gained.  And  in  his  labors,  as 
in  his  simple  joys,  his  wife  and  sons  and  daughters 
bore  their  part. 

Thus  was  born  and  fostered  an  even  more  intense 
spirit  of  independence  and  individualism  than  had 


16      ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

been  developed  in  the  coastal  days  —  days,  indeed, 
resembling  these,  but  infinitely  less  trying.  Then 
the  pioneer  always  had  at  his  back  the  familiar  sea, 
on  which  he  could  rely  did  the  elements  or  man 
render  his  position  untenable.  Now  he  had  put  the 
sea  far  behind  him,  while  between  him  and  it  lay 
a  mountain  wall  and  hundreds  of  miles  of  well- 
nigh  impassable  wilderness.  Small  wonder  that, 
taking  account  of  the  dangers  passed  and  the  ob 
stacles  conquered,  his  confidence  in  himself  in 
creased  and,  dimly  enough  at  first,  he  began  to 
crave  further  tests  of  his  power.  But,  be  it  observed, 
his  self-containedness  and  self-reliance  were  not 
accompanied  by  any  loss  of  the  social  sentiment. 
On  the  contrary,  in  his  rude  settlements  there  was 
a  greater  solidarity  of  interests  than  more  advanced 
communities  can  boast.  The  consciousness  of  isola 
tion,  if  nothing  else,  tended  to  draw  the  people 
closer  together.  Was  there  a  cabin  to  be  built, 
willing  hands  united  to  lighten  the  burden.  Was 
there  a  crop  to  be  harvested,  corn  to  be  husked,  a 
merry  party  quickly  came  together.  Was  there  a 
death  to  be  mourned,  a  grave  dug,  rough  but  kindly 
voices  condoled  with  the  bereaved,  strong  arms 
gently  lowered  the  old  friend  to  his  last  sleeping- 
place.  And  did  the  Indian  threaten,  swift  riders 


DANIEL  BOONE  17 

galloped  from  farm  to  farm,  warning  their  inhab 
itants  to  find  safety  in  the  communal  stockade. 

Such  alarms  grew  frequent  with  the  outbreak  of 
the  War  for  Independence,  and  the  subsequent 
invasion  of  the  Kentucky  country  by  the  Indian 
allies  of  the  British.  Nor  did  respite  come  until 
George  Rogers  Clark  executed  his  magnificent 
project  of  conquering  the  posts  in  the  northwest. 
Boone  did  not  follow  Clark  and  his  devoted  little 
army  of  backwoodsmen,  for  the  sufficient  reason 
that  he  was  at  the  time  a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of 
the  Indians.  With  some  thirty  other  Kentuckians, 
he  had  been  taken  captive  at  the  Licking  River, 
whither  he  had  gone  to  make  the  salt  of  which  his 
settlement  stood  in  sore  need.  Happily,  his  repu 
tation  as  a  hunter  and  fighter  insured  him  kind 
treatment.  More  than  this,  it  earned  for  him, 
though  much  against  his  will,  the  high  honor  of 
adoption  into  the  tribe  by  which  he  had  been  taken 
captive.  Nothing  in  Boone's  altogether  astonishing 
career  is  more  remarkable  than  the  course  he  now 
pursued.  The  art  of  concealment  had  not  been  the 
least  of  the  acquisitions  of  his  long  years  of  adven 
ture,  and  with  every  outward  sign  of  delight  and 
enthusiasm  he  submitted  to  the  painful  ceremonies 
by  which  his  white  blood  was  "washed  out"  and  his 


1 8      ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

transformation  into  a  full-fledged  warrior  effected. 
Soon,  so  successful  was  he  in  dissembling  his  true 
feelings,  his  captors  came  to  regard  him  with  a  real 
affection.  He  hunted  with  them,  smoked  with 
them,  feasted  with  them,  in  the  paint  and  regalia 
of  a  veritable  brave.  But  all  the  time  his  heart  was 
in  far-away  Kentucky;  and  when  he  learned  that 
a  descent  was  planned  on  the  post  which  had  been 
named  after  him,  and  which  was  the  only  protection 
of  those  most  dear  to  him,  he  realized  that  escape 
must  be  no  longer  delayed.  Secreting  a  little  ven 
ison  and  starting  for  the  hunt  as  was  his  wont,  he 
struck  boldly  off.  Well  he  knew  pursuit  would  be 
instant  and  vindictive,  for  the  Indians  would  view 
his  flight  as  the  blackest  ingratitude.  Doubling  on 
his  tracks,  fording  streams,  utilizing  every  resource 
at  the  command  of  the  skilled  woodsman  to  baffle 
a  following  enemy,  he  pressed  steadily  ahead,  un 
mindful  of  hunger,  fatigue,  or  injury.  Five  days 
afterwards,  famished,  footsore,  and  bleeding,  he 
staggered  into  Boonesborough,  where  he  came  as 
one  risen  from  the  dead.  A  few  hurried  incoherent 
words,  and  the  settlers  understood.  When  the 
Indians  appeared,  they  found  the  fort  in  readiness 
for  them,  and  though  the  siege  they  laid  was  long 
and  crafty,  it  ended  in  their  discomfited  retreat. 


DANIEL  BOONE  AT  EIGHTY- FIVE 
From  the  only  contemporary  portrait  of  Boone,  a  painting  made  by  Chester  Harding 

in  1819. 

Reproduced,  by  permission,  from  "  Daniel  Boone,"  by  Reuben  G.  Thu'ailes,  published  by 

D.  Appleton  &  Co. 


DANIEL  BOONE  19 

The  climax  of  Boone's  career  as  an  Indian-fighting 
pioneer  came  with  the  battle  of  the  Blue  Licks,  one 
of  the  bloodiest  and  most  disastrous  in  the  annals 
of  border  warfare,  and  the  miserable  sequel  to  an 
event  memorable  as  revealing  to  an  unexampled 
degree  the  heroism  of  the  mothers  and  daughters  of 
the  early  West.  One  morning  the  inhabitants  of 
an  outlying  post  awoke  to  find  themselves  surrounded 
by  some  three  or  four  hunded  warriors,  mostly 
fierce  Wyandottes,  under  the  command  of  the  in 
famous  renegade  Simon  Girty.*  Girty,  it  soon 
became  apparent,  hoped  to  gain  an  easy  victory  by 
feigning  an  attack  at  the  main  gate,  and,  when  this 
should  draw  out  the  garrison,  making  the  real  as 
sault  with  the  remainder  of  his  force,  whom  he  would 
meantime  keep  hidden  in  the  forest.  Promptly  the 
veteran  backwoodsmen  arranged  a  counter-ruse. 
But  first  it  was  necessary  to  procure  a  supply  of 
water,  for  without  water  they  knew  they  could  not 
withstand  what  was  likely  to  prove  a  protracted 
siege.  And  for  water,  unfortunately,  they  were 

*  There  was  also  present  with  the  invaders  a  small  force  of  Canadian 
Rangers  commanded  by  a  loyalist,  Capt.  William  Caldwell,  who  was 
the  nominal  head  of  the  expedition.  But  it  seems  to  be  true,  as  Kentucky 
historians  have  claimed,  that  it  was  to  Girty  rather  than  to  Caldwell 
that  the  Indians  looked  for  leadership.  For  a  good  account  of  the  life 
of  this  really  remarkable  "white  Indian"  consult  Consul  Wiltshire 
Butterfield's  "  History  of  the  Girtys." 


20      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

dependent  on  a  spring  in  the  very  midst  of  the  lurk 
ing  Indians. 

It  was  now  that  the  women  proved  their  mettle. 
Hazarding  their  lives  on  the  chance  that  the  am 
bushed  foe  would  make  no  move  until  battle  were 
given  to  the  attacking  party,  they  sallied  out,  bucket 
in  hand,  and  in  single  file  moved  up  the  narrow 
trail  to  the  spring.  They  could  plainly  discern  the 
glint  of  the  rifles  in  the  undergrowth,  the  waving 
feathers,  the  tawny  forms,  but  never  an  indication 
did  they  give  of  the  horror  and  dread  that  held  their 
souls.  One  by  one,  chatting  and  laughing  with 
sublime  control,  they  reached  the  spring,  dipped  up 
its  limpid  water,  and  returned,  heroines  whose  noble 
deed  deserves  to  be  forever  remembered,  not  in 
Kentucky  alone,  but  in  all  the  land.*  With  their 
return  the  garrison  acted.  Shouting  and  hallooing 
to  give  an  exaggerated  idea  of  their  number,  a 
handful  of  volunteers  hurried  after  the  retreating 
Indians;  and  then,  as  the  war-whoop  went  up  from 
the  woods  behind  and  a  savage  troop  hurled  itself 
forward,  a  deadly  volley  blazed  from  the  stockade, 

*  Bryan's  Station,  situated  on  the  road  between  the  present  cities 
of  Lexington  and  Paris,  was  the  scene  of  this  notable  instance  of  woman's 
bravery.  It  is  pleasant  to  be  able  to  record  that  a  few  years  ago  the 
Lexington  Chapter  of  the  Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution  marked 
the  site  of  the  famous  spring  by  building  a  memorial  wall  around  it. 


DANIEL   BOONE  21 

carrying  to  Girty  ample  and  fearful  intimation  that 
his  plans  had  miscarried. 

Before  another  daybreak,  warned  that  relief  expe 
ditions  were  hurrying  from  Boonesborough  and  other 
settlements,  the  copper-colored  foe  withdrew,  to  be 
overtaken  two  days  later,  just  after  they  had  crossed 
the  Licking  River  at  the  lower  Blue  Licks.  The 
country  thereabout  was  singularly  wild  and  difficult, 
lending  itself  admirably  to  purposes  of  ambuscade, 
and  Boone,  who  commanded  part  of  the  little  army, 
was  of  the  opinion  that  it  would  be  well  to  await 
reinforcements  before  continuing  the  pursuit.  But 
rasher  counsels  prevailed.  Spurring  his  horse  into 
the  river,  another  officer  called  on  all  who  were  not 
cowards  to  follow  him,  and,  stung  by  the  taunt,  the 
Kentuckians  cast  prudence  to  the  winds,  forded  the 
Licking,  and  rushed  tumultuously  up  the  barren 
bluffs  on  its  opposite  side.  Here  a  semblance  of 
order  was  restored,  and  a  march  begun  along  a 
ridge  that  was  flanked  on  each  side  by  densely 
wooded  ravines,  reaching  down  to  the  edge  of  the 
river,  which  at  this  point  took  a  wide  circular  sweep. 

In  these  ravines  the  Indians  lay  so  skilfully  con 
cealed  that  not  an  inkling  of  their  presence  was  had 
until  the  pursuers  were  almost  upon  them.  Then 
the  first  knowledge  came  in  a  hail  of  bullets,  fired 


22      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

at  close  range  and  inflicting  terrible  loss.  The  next 
moment  the  entrapped  pioneers  were  in  hand-to- 
hand  conflict  with  a  foe  much  stronger  and  not  a 
whit  less  courageous  than  they.  There  could  be 
but  one  issue.  Breaking,  they  fled  precipitately 
back  to  the  river,  the  triumphant  Wyandottes  fast 
on  their  heels.  Boone,  who  stood  his  ground  until 
the  flight  became  general,  had  the  agonizing  experi 
ence  of  seeing  his  son  fall  mortally  wounded  by  his 
side.  Heedless  of  his  own  danger,  he  stooped, 
lifted  him  from  the  ground,  and  bore  him  swiftly 
down  the  rocky  slope  and  into  the  Licking.  Above 
him  the  massacre  continued,  about  him  the  bullets 
rained  —  his  one  thought  was  of  the  child  that  had 
been,  the  man  that  was,  gasping  and  groaning  in 
his  arms.  In  vain  his  devotion,  in  vain  his  mut 
tered  prayer.  Before  the  river  was  crossed  the 
death  agony  had  come,  and,  with  a  hurried  farewell 
caress,  he  laid  down  his  inanimate  burden  and 
sought  refuge  in  the  forest,  making  his  way  by  toil 
some  stages  to  the  post  whence  the  expedition  had 
set  out  with  such  high  hopes.  And  there,  to  his 
greater  sorrow  and  wrath,  he  found  the  reinforce 
ments  whose  coming  he  had  urged  his  companions 
to  await.  The  Indians  had  done  their  bloody  work 
and  had  escaped.  All  that  remained  was  to  revisit 


DANIEL   BOONE  23 

the  battle-ground  and  bury  the  mutilated,  unrecog 
nizable  dead. 

Yet  there  was  a  little  more  which  could  in  time 
be  done,  and  Boone  played  his  part  in  the  doing  of 
it.  One  thousand  strong,  mounted  and  armed, 
the  settlers  met  together  from  all  sections  of  the 
western  country,  crossed  the  border,  and  hastened 
northwards,  not  halting  until  they  reached  the  Indian 
towns  of  Chillicothe,  Pickaway,  and  Willstown. 
Before  their  advance  the  tribesmen  melted  away, 
leaving  the  avengers  to  plunder  and  destroy  at  will. 
Great  was  the  desolation  they  wrought  —  so  great 
that  never  again  did  the  red  men  attempt  to  invade 
Kentucky  in  force.  The  battle  of  the  Blue  Licks 
and  its  aftermath  marked,  in  fact,  a  turning-point 
in  the  history  of  the  settlement  of  the  Middle  West. 
Thereafter,  though  for  long  there  were  sporadic 
raids,  and  though  for  long  the  Indian  continued  to 
roam  and  slay,  the  future  complete  predominance 
of  the  white  man  was  assured.  And  in  this  knowl 
edge  we  may  well  take  leave  of  the  settlers  and  their 
pathfinder,  for  whom  Fate  still  held  in  store  much 
that  was  romantic  and  adventurous,  and  who,  in  a 
ripe  old  age,  was  to  die  as  he  had  lived  —  well  in 
advance  of  civilization,  and  with  his  gaze  turned 
steadfastly  in  the  direction  of  the  setting  sun. 


CHAPTER  II 

THOMAS     JEFFERSON     AND  THE     LOUISIANA 
PURCHASE 

THE  first  forward  step  in  the  territorial  expansion 
of  the  United  States  became  an  accomplished  fact 
December  17,  1803,  when  the  French  flag  gave 
place  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes  at  the  city  of  New 
Orleans.  With  this  act,  and  as  the  result  not  of 
conquest  but  of  diplomacy,  the  American  Republic 
that  had  come  into  being  only  a  few  years  before 
extended  its  dominions  from  the  Mississippi  River 
to  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  paved  the  way  for  its 
future  pre-eminence  among  the  nations  of  the  world. 
Even  to-day  the  giant  stride  thus  taken  staggers 
the  imagination.  Harassed  by  problems  at  home 
and  abroad,  critical  problems  which  menaced  the 
very  existence  of  the  new-born  nation,  and  already 
in  possession  of  a  territory  that  seemed  ample  for 
the  support  of  many  future  generations,  there  might 
well  have  been  deemed  cause  for  hesitancy  when 
the  opportunity  offered  for  the  acquirement  of  new 


24 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  25 

lands  and  with  new  lands  added  burdens.  Yet 
that  opportunity  was  grasped  with  stupendous  celer 
ity  and  with  an  enthusiasm  which  showed  that, 
young  as  the  nation  was,  it  had  begun  to  appreciate 
its  power  and  its  capabilities.  That  the  opportu 
nity  came  unsought  only  increases  the  marvel  of  the 
readiness  with  which  it  was  seized.  Pondering 
the  pages  of  the  early  history  of  the  United  States, 
it  is  easy  enough  now  to  realize  that  from  the  mo 
ment  Daniel  Boone  opened  the  pathway  to  the  West 
the  future  extension  of  the  American  people  was  a 
thing  inevitable,  and  that  had  the  Mississippi  bar 
rier  not  been  raised  when  it  was  by  the  purchase  of 
the  vast  territory  known  as  Louisiana,  it  would  have 
been  raised  at  some  later  day,  albeit  at  the  cost  not 
of  dollars  but  of  blood.  But  the  actors  in  the  mighty 
drama  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  could  not  see  this 
as  we  of  the  twentieth  century  see  it.  They  could 
only  hope  and  dream,  and  all  honor  to  them  that 
they  did  hope  and  dream.  To  each  one  who  played 
a  part  in  securing  for  his  country  this  its  first  and 
greatest  territorial  acquisition  belongs  imperish 
able  glory;  and  in  especial  must  tribute  be  paid  to 
the  memory  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  national  chief 
executive  who,  discarding  all  political  and  partisan 
prejudices,  gave  effect  to  the  agreement  that  had 


26      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

been  reached  in  distant  France,  and  by  so  doing 
rendered  his  noblest  service  to  posterity. 

Jefferson,  in  truth,  may  fairly  be  accounted  the 
first  of  the  long  line  of  notable  American  expansion 
ists.  There  were  others,  like  Alexander  Hamilton, 
who  cherished  ideals  of  a  greater  America  than 
that  which  had  been  born  of  the  struggle  for  inde 
pendence.  But  it  was  Jefferson's  distinction  to  be 
the  first  to  give  form  and  reality  to  such  ideals,  and 
to  transform  dreams  into  deeds.  No  more  singular 
mistake  can  be  made  than  to  imagine,  as  some  have 
imagined,  that  his  share  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
was  purely  fortuitous,  and  that  in  acting  as  he  did 
he  merely  pursued  a  policy  of  opportunism  founded 
on  what  he  perceived  to  be  the  will  of  the  people.  ' 
On  the  contrary,  the  Louisiana  Purchase  meant  to 
him  the  realization  of  a  long  and  ardently  cherished 
desire,  a  consummation  none  the  less  welcome 
because  it  came  so  unexpectedly.  It  was  the  good 
fortune  of  the  nation  that  he  occupied  the  Presi 
dential  chair  at  the  moment  when  Napoleon  found 
it  necessary  to  relinquish  his  grasp  of  the  rich  do 
main  wrung  from  the  yielding  Spaniard.  Another, 
with  less  penetrating  vision  into  the  possibilities  and 
exigencies  of  the  years  to  come,  would  have  faltered 
and  let  slip  the  golden  opportunity.  But  Jefferson, 


« 


THOMAS  JEFFERSOX 

From  a  crayon  drawing,  now  in   the   possession    of   Dr.  W.  C.  N.  Randolph,  of 
Charlottesville,  Virginia,  the  great-grandson  of  Jefferson. 


•$$ 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  27 

true  expansionist,  one  is  tempted  to  write  greatest  of 
American  expansionists,  understood,  and,  under 
standing,  acted. 

There  is  temptation,  too,  to  declare  that  it  was 
his  destiny  to  crown  his  wonderful  career  by  the 
Louisiana  Purchase.  Certainly  the  story  of  his 
life,  when  considered  in  relation  to  the  Purchase, 
tends  to  bear  out  this  view.  He  was  born  April  13, 
1743,  in  a  Virginia  farmhouse  among  the  foothills  of 
the  Blue  Ridge.  From  his  father,  a  sturdy  yeoman, 
himself  Virginia  born,  he  inherited  a  stalwart  frame, 
a  stout  constitution,  an  independent  and  self-reliant 
spirit,  and  a  lasting  love  for  the  life  outdoors.  His 
mother,  likewise  a  Virginian,  and  daughter  of  one  of 
the  proudest  and  wealthiest  families  of  the  colony, 
bequeathed  him  the  gentler  qualities  of  kindli 
ness,  affability,  and  courtesy;  and,  it  is  to  be  in 
ferred  from  the  little  that  has  been  recorded  of  her, 
also  blessed  him  with  the  literary  talent  which  was 
to  find  immortal  expression  in  after  years.  Added 
to  the  happy  combination  of  characteristics  with 
which  he  was  thus  endowed  was  the  beneficent 
influence  of  the  environment  of  his  infancy  and 
early  youth.  From  the  wilderness  which  stretched 
for  miles  about  the  little  clearing,  he  drew  in  with 
his  first  breath  sentiments  of  freedom  and  liberality. 


28      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

As  he  grew  older  and  roamed  through  the  forest  gun 
in  hand,  these  sentiments  were  deepened  by  con 
templation  of  the  open  and  untrammeled  ways  of 
nature.  He  perceived,  too,  in  the  broad  vistas  of 
woodland,  valley,  mountain  range,  and  stream,  a 
perpetual  symbol  of  the  vastness  and  grandeur  and 
opportunities  of  the  land  in  which  he  lived.  And 
doubtless,  like  Daniel  Boone,  himself  at  that  time 
serving  his  apprenticeship  in  another  corner  of  the 
border,  he  felt  the  frontiersman's  longing  to  press 
on  and  on  through  the  cool  green  spaces  to  the 
mountains,  and  beyond  the  mountains  to  the  mysteri 
ous  depths  in  which  each  night  the  sun  sank  to 
repose. 

But  there  were  ties  that  held  him  in  the  East. 
At  the  age  of  seventeen  behold  him,  tall,  sinewy, 
sandy-haired,  and  freckled,  a  trifle  awkward,  but 
of  boundless  good  nature,  infinite  hope,  and  a  radi 
ant  smile,  mounting  his  horse  and  by  leisurely  stages 
making  his  way  from  the  mountains  to  the  colony's 
quaint  old  capital,  there  to  begin  the  education  that 
would  fit  him  for  the  one  career  open  to  well-con 
nected  and  ambitiously  inclined  Virginians.  Ear 
nest,  brilliant,  capable,  such  was  the  impression  he 
made  that  when,  after  two  years  of  unremitting 
effort,  he  graduated  triumphantly  from  college  and 


THOMAS   JEFFERSON  29 

began  the  study  of  law,  the  famous  George  Wythe, 
leader  of  the  Virginia  bar,  willingly  received  him 
into  his  office.  And  so  thoroughly  did  he  command 
confidence  and  esteem  that  upon  his  admission  to 
practise  clients  came  to  him  a  plenty,  country  bred 
though  he  was.*  A  little  later,  and  in  the  very  year 
that  Boone  began  his  epoch-making  pilgrimage 
to  Kentucky,  he  found  himself  a  member  of  the 
Virginia  House  of  Burgesses,  fairly  launched  on 
his  long  and  useful  political  career. 

As  the  event  at  once  proved,  he  had,  throughout 
his  years  of  city  life,  clung  steadfastly  to  the  prin 
ciples  and  yearnings  implanted  in  him  by  the  influ 
ences  of  childhood,  influences  which  were  reinforced 
by  frequent  and  prolonged  visits  to  the  well-loved 
home,  now  transformed  from  wilderness  to  a  pros 
perous  plantation.  Scarcely  had  he  taken  his  seat 
among  his  fellow-legislators,  before  the  House, 
already  restive  under  the  increasing  impositions  of 
the  home  authorities,  was  dissolved  by  an  irate 
Governor;  and  immediately,  with  Washington,  Lee, 
Henry,  and  others  to  whom  after  events  were  to 

*  Jefferson  left  no  record  of  his  business  before  the  lower  courts, 
but  during  his  first  year  as  a  practising  lawyer,  he  had  sixty-eight  cases 
before  the  General  Court,  during  his  second  year  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  cases,  and  during  his  third  year  one  hundred  and  ninety-eight. 
His  first  year's  practise  before  the  General  Court  alone  netted  him  nearly 
three  hundred  pounds. 


30      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

bring  the  guerdon  of  immortality,  Jefferson  began 
the  campaign  of  agitation  and  exhortation  that 
culminated  in  the  historic  document  which  com 
memorates  for  all  time  his  first  great  service  to  his 
fellow-men.  For  the  present  purpose,  however, 
there  is  no  need  to  follow  him  through  this  impress 
ive  period  of  his  life.  But  there  is  vital  need  to 
pause  for  a  moment  and  recall  an  event  which, 
occurring  in  the  year  after  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  had  been  announced  to  the  world,  and 
when  Jefferson  was  once  more  a  Virginia  legislator, 
turned  his  attention  as  never  before  to  the  region 
beyond  the  mountains,  and  may  properly  be  said 
to  mark  the  starting-point  of  the  policy  that  found 
fruition  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase. 

This  event  was  the  arrival  in  Virginia  of  George 
Rogers  Clark,  fresh  from  the  wilds  and  eager  to 
secure  authorization  for  his  daring  project  of  seizing 
the  British  posts  on  the  northwest  frontier,  and  thus 
stemming  the  tide  of  Indian  invasion  that  threat 
ened  to  overwhelm  the  border  settlements.  To 
Virginia  he  came  because,  as  he  well  knew,  Virginia 
laid  claim  to  all  the  territory  stretching  westward 
from  her  southern  boundary  to  the  Mississippi  and 
northward  to  the  Great  Lakes.  Listening  to  his 
forceful  eloquence,  and  following  with  keen  inter- 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  31 

est  the  romantic  vicissitudes  and  the  splendid  triumph 
of  the  enterprise  that  resulted  from  his  visit  East, 
Jefferson's  heart  went  out  with  the  liveliest  sympathy 
to  Clark  and  to  all  who  were  striving  with  him  to 
obtain  mastery  of  the  wilderness.  If  he  had  not 
done  so  before,  he  fully  appreciated  now  the  sig 
nificance  of  the  migration  that  had  set  in  by  way  of 
Boone's  trail.  And,  as  may  be  seen  from  his  cor 
respondence,  as  soon  as  he  became  Governor  of 
Virginia  —  that  is  to  say,  within  a  few  months  after 
Clark  had  finally  established  himself  at  Kaskaskia 
and  Vincennes  —  he  was  prompt  in  taking  measures 
to  strengthen  the  defenses  of  the  western  country, 
and,  as  shown  by  the  creation  of  the  Virginia  Land 
Office,  to  promote  its  settlement.*  To  the  border 
folk,  likewise,  he  instinctively  turned  when  hard 
pressed  by  the  still  vindictive  foe.  "I  have  a  pecul 
iar  confidence  in  the  men  from  the  western  side  of 
the  mountains,"  was  his  message  to  Clark  in  the 
opening  month  of  the  critical  year  1781.  There 
after,  to  the  day  of  his  death,  his  "  peculiar  confi 
dence"  continued  unabated. 

It  would,  in  fact,  be  difficult  to  name  a  Revolu 
tionary  statesman  to  whom  the  war  brought  a  wider 

*P.  L.  Ford's  Edition,  "The  Writings  of  Thomas  Jefferson,"  vol. 
n>  P-  293,  et  seq. 


32      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

understanding  of  the  temper  and  aspirations  of 
the  transmontane  settlers.  The  surroundings  amid 
which  he  had  spent  his  childhood  and  early  youth 
and  the  characteristics  acquired  from  his  rugged 
and  outright  father  had,  of  course,  laid  a  solid  foun 
dation  for  such  an  understanding.  But  not  until 
war  came  and  the  long-persisting  controversies  with 
the  mother  country  had  been  submitted  to  the  arbitra 
ment  of  arms  did  the  opportunity  offer  for  close 
contact  with  and  just  appreciation  of  the  men  who 
were  taking  part  in  the  westward  movement.  With 
the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  however,  and  in  especial 
from  the  moment  he  became  Governor  of  a  State 
that  claimed  sovereignty  over  almost  the  whole  of 
the  western  country,  no  other  leader  in  the  colossal 
struggle  was  so  happily  situated  to  glimpse  the  nas 
cent  Republic  in  its  entirety.  His  earlier  activity 
in  connection  with  the  preliminaries  of  the  Revolu 
tion  had  made  him  well  acquainted  with  the  spirit 
of  the  seaboard  people.  Now  he  obtained  an 
equally  clear  knowledge  of  the  spirit  of  the  people 
who  had  migrated  from  the  seaboard.  And,  sym 
pathizing  with  the  one  as  truly  and  profoundly  as 
with  the  other,  perceiving  their  mutual  jealousies, 
but  perceiving  also  their  mutual  interests,  it  was  in 
evitable  that  his  view  should  broaden,  that  to  the 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  33 

ideal  of  independence  he  should  add  the  ideal  of 
nationality  and  of  national  growth. 

It  was  some  time,  however,  before  the  conse 
quences  of  his  war-time  experience  became  appar 
ent.  Chagrined  at  the  criticisms  passed  upon  his 
official  conduct,  he  refused  to  stand  for  re-election 
as  Governor,  and  went  into  a  retirement  that  was 
prolonged  by  the  grief  into  which  he  was  cast  through 
the  loss  of  his  beloved  wife.  But  even  in  retirement 
there  are  indications  —  though  scanty,  for  little  of 
his  correspondence  during  this  period  has  been 
preserved  —  that  he  kept  a  close  watch  on  the  trend 
of  events  and  was  eager  to  advance  the  interests 
not  of  Virginia  only,  but  of  all  the  country.  And, 
once  he  assumed  again  the  burdens  and  responsibil 
ities  of  public  life,  the  evidence  of  his  really  national 
istic  sentiments  rapidly  increases.  As  a  member 
of  the  Continental  Congress  in  the  spring  of  1784 
he  was  prominent  in  the  cession  to  the  Union  of 
the  great  territory  in  the  Northwest  to  which  Virginia 
laid  claim,  and  it  was  he  who  drew  up  the  first  plan 
for  the  government  of  the  region  thus  ceded.  Sim 
ilarly  he  busied  himself  in  devising  measures  for 
the  wise  distribution  of  the  public  lands,  and,  after 
he  had  entered  on  his  treaty-framing  mission  abroad, 
in  laboring  to  bring  about  an  adjustment  of  the 


34      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

complications  which  had  developed  in  the  South 
west  owing  to  the  evident  intention  of  Spain  to  close 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi,  the  one  commercial 
highway  affording  the  pioneers  of  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  ready  access  to  the  markets  of  the  East. 
It  was  this  short-sighted  policy  that  gave  rise  to  the 
agitation  which  finally  resulted  in  the  Louisiana 
Purchase ;  and  long  before  the  Purchase  was  effected 
it  was  this  same  policy,  reviewed  in  the  light  of  a 
sublime  confidence  in  his  countrymen's  potential 
ities,  that  started  dreams  of  expansion  in  the  mind  of 
the  already  nationalistic  Jefferson. 

The  rapidity  with  which  these  dreams  took  form, 
and  the  early  date  at  which  he  began  to  ponder 
means  of  giving  them  reality,  may  be  seen  from 
a  letter  of  January  25,  1786,  written  to  Archibald 
Stuart  from  Paris,  where  Jefferson  had  now  suc 
ceeded  Franklin  as  Minister  to  France.  Stuart, 
seemingly,  had  called  his  attention  to  the  growing 
spirit  of  anger  and  unrest  that  was  taking  posses 
sion  of  the  Westerners  in  consequence  of  the  Gov 
ernment's  failure  to  arrive  at  an  understanding  with 
Spain,  and  Jefferson  wrote  in  reply:  "I  fear  from 
an  expression  in  your  letter  that  the  people  of  Ken 
tucky  think  of  separating  not  only  from  Virginia 
(in  which  they  are  right)  but  also  from  the  Confed- 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  35 

eracy.  I  own  I  should  think  this  a  most  calamitous 
event,  and  such  an  one  as  every  good  citizen  on 
both  sides  should  set  himself  against.  Our  present 
federal  limits  are  not  too  large  for  good  government, 
nor  will  the  increase  of  votes  in  Congress  produce 
any  ill  effect.  On  the  contrary,  it  will  drown  the 
little  divisions  at  present  existing  there.  Our  Con 
federacy  must  be  viewed  as  the  nest  from  which  all 
America,  North  and  South,  is  to  be  peopled.  We 
should  take  care,  too,  not  to  think  it  for  the  interest 
of  that  great  continent  to  press  too  soon  on  the 
Spaniards.  Those  countries  cannot  be  in  better 
hands.  My  fear  is  that  they  are  too  feeble  to  hold 
them  till  our  population  can  be  sufficiently  advanced 
to  gain  it  from  them  piece  by  piece."  * 

Bearing  in  mind  the  date  of  this  letter  and  the 
sentiments  it  expressed,  the  inference  is  irresistible 
that  ideas  of  expansion  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the 
proposal  he  soon  afterwards  made  to  the  Connecti 
cut  traveler,  Ledyard,  then  in  Paris,  and  panting 
to  achieve  new  laurels  as  an  explorer.  As  Jefferson 
himself  tells  the  story  in  his  Memoir  of  Meriwether 
Lewis,  he  suggested  to  Ledyard  that  he  traverse 
Russia  to  Kamchatka,  cross  to  Nootka  Sound,  and 
thence  "fall  down  into  the  latitude  of  the  Missouri, 

*  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  IV,  pp.  188-89. 


36      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

and  penetrate  to  and  through  that  to  the  United 
States."  This  would  indeed  be  a  personal  triumph 
for  Ledyard,  since  no  white  man  had  as  yet  crossed 
the  continent  from  ocean  to  ocean;  and  to  the 
United  States  it  would  at  least  mean  some  knowl 
edge  of  the  geography  and  resources  of  the  unex 
plored  territory  between  the  Mississippi  and  the 
Pacific.  It  is  significant  to  note,  also,  that  Jeffer 
son  made  no  attempt  to  secure  from  Spain  permis 
sion  for  this  journey  through  her  colonial  domain; 
his  only  care  was  to  gain  the  consent  of  Russia,  and 
it  was  in  consequence  of  the  unexpected  withdrawal 
of  that  consent,  for  reasons  which  must  be  left  to 
conjecture,  that  Ledyard  ultimately  found  it  im 
possible  to  execute  his  mission,  being  arrested  by 
order  of  the  Empress  when  within  two  hundred 
miles  of  Kamchatka  and  hurried  to  Poland,  whence 
he  sadly  carried  to  Jefferson  the  news  of  his  failure. 
The  latter,  meantime,  had  been  wrought  to  a 
high  pitch  of  indignation  by  learning  that,  in  order 
to  effect  a  favorable  commercial  treaty  with  Spain, 
Congress  might  waive  the  Mississippi  claims.  "I 
will  venture  to  say,"  he  protested  to  Madison,  in 
a  letter  from  Paris,  January  30,  1787,  "that  the  act 
which  abandons  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
is  an  act  of  separation  between  the  eastern  and  the 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  37 

western  country."  *  Yet  he  realized  only  too  well 
that  the  United  States  was  in  no  position  to  accept 
the  alternative  suggested  by  Jay  the  year  before, 
when  he  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  American  rights 
on  the  Mississippi  could  be  secured  only  "by  arms 
or  by  treaty."  To  the  Kentuckians,  therefore, 
Jefferson  counseled  patience,  advising  them  "to 
defer  pushing  their  right  to  that  navigation  to  extrem 
ity  as  long  as  they  can  do  without  it,"  f  and  to  await 
if  possible  the  outbreak  of  a  European  war  when 
Spain  would  be  less  favorably  situated  to  resist  the 
American  demands.  Perhaps  he  also  had  in  view 
the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo  until  the  United 
States  should  be  strong  enough  to  begin  the  process 
of  absorption  depicted  in  his  letter  to  Stuart.  At 
any  rate,  soon  after  his  return  from  France  to  enter 
Washington's  Cabinet,  we  find  him  making  a  first 
tentative  move  in  the  direction  of  actual  expansion. 
The  Mississippi  question  was  still  unsettled,  and 
had,  in  fact,  grown  more  acute.  Immigrants  by 
the  thousand  were  pouring  from  the  tide-water 
country  into  the  region  watered  by  the  lordly  river 
and  its  tributaries,  but  Spain  stubbornly  adhered 
to  her  refusal  to  grant  their  produce-laden  vessels 

*  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  IV,  p.  363. 
f  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  V,  p.  17. 


38      ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

free  passage  to  the  Gulf.  True  to  her  standards 
of  diplomatic  dilatoriness,  she  shuffled,  evaded, 
postponed.  Accordingly,  it  became  one  of  Jeffer 
son's  first  tasks  as  Secretary  of  State  to  spur  the 
American  representative  at  Madrid,  Charge  d' Af 
faires  Carmichael,  to  renewed  efforts  to  reach  a  defi 
nite  understanding;  and  in  so  doing  he  made  a  most 
significant  suggestion.  It  would  be  well,  he  in 
structed  Carmichael,  to  propose  to  the  Spanish 
Government  not  simply  a  treaty  securing  the  desired 
privilege  of  navigation,  but  a  treaty  whereby  Spain 
would  cede  to  the  United  States  all  her  territory  on 
the  east  side  of  the  Mississippi  "on  condition  that 
we  guarantee  all  her  possessions  on  the  western 
waters  of  that  river,  she  agreeing,  further,  to  sub 
sidize  us  if  the  guarantee  brings  us  into  war." 
To  convince  Spain  that  the  United  States  would 
rest  content  with  such  a  cession,  and  would  make 
no  attempt  to  dislodge  her  from  the  western  bank 
of  the  Mississippi,  he  also  instructed  Carmichael  to 
assure  King  Charles  and  his  Ministers  that  it  was 
not  in  the  interest  of  the  United  States  to  obtain 
possession  of  trans-Mississippi  territory,  and  that 
a  policy  of  conquest  had  no  place  in  the  American 
scheme  of  government.  To  quote  his  own  words: 
"Conquest  not  in  our  principles;  inconsistent  with 


THOMAS   JEFFERSON  39 

our  government."  *  That  this,  however,  was  simply 
a  diplomatic  subterfuge,  and  that  he  really  enter 
tained  radically  different  ideas,  is  strikingly  exhib 
ited  by  a  letter  he  wrote  to  Washington  less  than  a 
year  later,  when  Spain  had  embarked  on  the  policy 
of  endeavoring  to  alienate  the  western  settlers  from 
their  allegiance  to  the  United  States.  "  Governor 
Quesada,"  he  reported  to  the  President,  "by  order 
of  his  court  is  inviting  foreigners  to  go  and  settle  in 
Florida.  This  is  meant  for  our  people.  ...  I 
wish  a  hundred  thousand  of  our  inhabitants  would 
accept  the  invitation.  It  will  be  the  means  of  deliv 
ering  to  us  peaceably  what  may  otherwise  cost  us 
a  war.  In  the  meantime  we  may  complain  of  this 
seduction  of  our  inhabitants  just  enough  to  make 
them  believe  we  think  it  very  wise  policy  for  them 
and  confirm  them  in  it.  This  is  my  idea  of  it."  f 

Clearly,  the  politic  Jefferson  did  not  shrink  from 
adopting  the  methods  of  Old  World  diplomacy. 
There  is  reason,  also,  for  suspecting  that  his  pro 
gram  was  not  confined  to  the  prospective  annex 
ation  of  Florida.  In  1792  the  opportune  arrival 
of  a  French  botanist,  Andre  Michaux,  commis 
sioned  by  his  Government  to  study  the  flora  of  the 

*  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  V,  p.  230. 
f  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  V,  p.  316. 


40      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

United  States,  suggested  to  Jefferson  a  renewal  of 
the  Ledyard  scheme  of  traversing  the  continent. 
It  is  generally  thought  that  in  this  he  was  animated 
by  a  purely  scientific  zeal;  but,  in  the  light  of 
subsequent  events,  a  different  interpretation  seems 
warranted  from  the  fact  that  the  instructions  drawn 
up  for  Michaux  by  Jefferson  himself  indicate  that 
the  great  object  of  the  proposed  expedition  was 
"that  you  seek  for  and  pursue  that  route  which 
shall  form  the  shortest  and  most  convenient  com 
munication  between  the  higher  parts  of  the  Missouri 
and  the  Pacific  Ocean. "  *  It  is  noteworthy,  too, 
that,  like  the  Ledyard  expedition,  Michaux's  under 
taking  came  to  grief  through  the  intervention  of  a 
foreign  Government,  the  French  Minister  recalling 
the  botanist  after  he  had  proceeded  as  far  as  Ken 
tucky.  And  it  may  be  added  in  passing,  when  the 
project  was  next  revived,  in  the  midst  of  the  excite 
ment  engendered  by  the  news  that  Spain  had  ceded 
Louisiana  to  France,  it  was  broached  in  a  way  and 
under  circumstances  that  have  led  the  latest  historian 
of  the  Purchase  period,  Edward  Channing,  to  sug 
gest  that  Jefferson  may  have  had  in  mind  a  possible 
seizure  of  the  region  through  which  his  explorers 
afterwards  made  their  way  on  their  historic  over- 

*  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  VI,  p.  160. 


THOMAS   JEFFERSON  41 

land  journey.  "The  Louisiana  Purchase,"  dryly 
observes  Professor  Channing,  "came  in  the  nick  of 
time  to  save  Jefferson  from  violating  the  code  of 
international  ethics."  * 

Nothing  developed  from  the  proposal  that  Spain 
cede  her  eastern  possessions  to  the  United  States; 
but  in  1795  a  treaty  was  finally  effected  securing  to 
the  people  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  though  for 
only  three  years,  the  right  to  use  the  Mississippi, 
and  to  transship  their  products  at  New  Orleans  from 
river  craft  to  ocean-going  vessels.  Unhappily,  on 
the  expiration  of  the  period  named,  the  old-time 
prohibition  was  renewed,  and  at  once  the  Westerners, 
whose  wrath  was  increased  by  appreciation  of  the 
fleeting  prosperity  they  had  enjoyed,  besieged  the 
National  Government  with  complaints  and  de 
mands  for  redress.  Again  there  was  talk  of  con 
quest,  even  of  secession.  Jefferson,  so  far  as  can 
be  judged  from  his  writings,  took  no  very  active  part 
in  the  initial  efforts  to  cope  with  a  problem  that  had 
once  more  become  of  the  utmost  menace  to  the  Amer 
ican  body  politic.  But,  from  what  has  already  been 
said,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  interest  with 
which  he  watched  the  rising  storm  and  noted  how 

*  Edward  Channing's  "The  Jefiersonian  System,"  p.  88.  Pub 
lished  as  vol.  XII  of  the  "American  Nation"  co-operative  history  of 
the  United  States. 


42      ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

rapidly  the  country  was  drifting  to  a  settlement  with 
Spain  along  the  lines  laid  down  in  his  memorandum 
to  Carmichael,  nearly  ten  years  before.  Not  even 
he,  however,  could  foresee  the  singular  turn  affairs 
were  to  take  before  a  settlement  was  actually  reached. 
The  Louisiana  country,  it  must  be  remembered, 
had  originally  belonged  to  France.  Basing  her 
claim  on  the  explorations  of  La  Salle  and  the  gal 
lant  adventurers  who  came  after  La  Salle,  she  had 
until  the  French  and  Indian  War  exercised  dominion 
over  the  fertile  lands  stretching  from  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  to  her  Canadian  possessions,  and  from  the 
Appalachian  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Never  had 
she  become  reconciled  to  the  cruel  fate  that  ousted 
her  completely  from  these  fair  territories,  compell 
ing  her  to  turn  them  over  in  part  to  England  as  the 
result  of  conquest,  and  in  part  to  Spain  as  the  price 
of  a  Spanish  alliance.  For  a  time,  torn  and  weak 
ened  by  the  internal  dissensions  that  culminated  in 
the  Revolution,  she  was  obliged  to  put  aside  all 
thought  of  endeavoring  to  re-establish  her  sover 
eignty  overseas.  But  with  the  advent  of  Napoleon 
and  the  recrudescence  of  her  vigor  under  his  master 
ful  impulse,  her  hopes  rose  anew.  To  Napoleon 
himself  nothing  seemed  more  desirable  than  to 
supplement  his  Old  World  program  of  French 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  43 

aggrandizement  by  rebuilding  the  New  World 
empire  of  France;  and,  appreciating  the  essential 
weakness  of  Spain,  he  resolved  to  make  a  beginning 
by  securing  from  her  a  retrocession  of  Louisiana, 
and,  if  possible,  a  cession  of  the  Floridas  also. 
Quietly  and  expeditiously  he  went  to  work,  dangling 
before  the  dynastically  ambitious  Spanish  court 
the  bait  of  a  rich  Italian  principality.  The  Flor 
idas  he  failed  to  obtain,  but,  by  the  secret  treaty  of 
San  Ildefonso,  October  i,  1800,  it  was  agreed  that, 
in  return  for  the  elevation  of  King  Charles's  son-in- 
law,  the  Duke  of  Parma,  to  the  throne  of  Tuscany, 
Spain  would  reconvey  Louisiana  to  France. 

Most  mischievous  to  Spain,  this  absurdly  one 
sided  bargain,  and  the  more  one-sided  since  Napo 
leon  failed  to  fulfil  his  share  of  the  agreement, 
promised  to  be  no  less  mischievous  to  the  United 
States  by  imposing  upon  her  a  powerful  and  aggres 
sive  neighbor.  But  it  was  months  before  so  much 
as  a  rumor  of  the  projected  retrocession  reached  the 
shores  of  America,  where,  in  the  meantime,  concil 
iatory  action  by  the  Spanish  authorities  at  New 
Orleans  had  placated  the  wrathful  men  of  the  West, 
and  where  Jefferson  had  replaced  Adams  in  the 
Presidential  chair.  When  the  news  did  leak  out, 
it  created  the  greatest  uneasiness.  Jefferson,  who 


44      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

in  his  inaugural  address  had  indulged  his  expan 
sionist  ideas  so  far  as  to  assure  his  countrymen  that 
they  were  "  advancing  rapidly  to  destinies  beyond 
the  reach  of  mortal  eye,"  frankly  voiced  his  alarm. 
"We  fear,"  he  wrote  to  his  son-in-law,  Thomas 
Mann  Randolph,  May  14,  1801,  "that  Spain  is 
ceding  Louisiana  to  France,  an  inauspicious  cir 
cumstance  to  us;"  *  and  similarly  twelve  days  later 
in  a  letter  to  Monroe,  "There  is  considerable  rea 
son  to  apprehend  that  Spain  cedes  Louisiana  and 
the  Floridas  to  France.  It  is  a  policy  very  unwise 
in  both,  and  very  ominous  to  us."  f  There  was 
at  the  time  no  American  Minister  to  France,  but 
instructions  were  at  once  sent  to  the  Minister  to 
Spain  urging  him  to  ascertain  what  truth  there 
might  be  in  the  reports  concerning  the  retrocession. 
No  satisfactory  intelligence  being  obtained,  the 
vacancy  to  France  was  now  filled  by  the  appoint 
ment  of  Robert  R.  Livingston,  who  was  directed 
to  press  diligently  for  an  acknowledgment  of 
Napoleon's  intentions.  Still  nothing  definite  could 
be  learned,  and  at  last,  determined  to  make  plain 
to  France  the  attitude  of  the  United  States,  Jeffer 
son  personally  addressed  to  Livingston  a  long  letter 

*  Massachusetts  Historical  Society's  "Collections,"   yth  series,  vol. 

I.  P-  95- 

t  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  VIII,  p.  58. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  45 

of  instructions,  bidding  him  let  Napoleon  know 
that  "the  day  that  France  takes  possession  of  New 
Orleans  fixes  the  sentence  which  is  to  restrain  her 
forever  within  her  low-water  mark.  It  seals  the 
union  of  two  nations  who  in  conjunction  can  main 
tain  exclusive  possession  of  the  ocean.  From  that 
moment  we  must  marry  ourselves  to  the  British 
fleet  and  nation."  * 

Remembering  the  animosity  with  which  Jeffer 
son  had  regarded  England  and  all  things  English 
since  the  days  of  the  struggle  for  independence,  and 
the  affection  he  had  hitherto  entertained  for  France, 
nothing  shows  more  clearly  how  thoroughly  aroused 
he  was.  But  it  is  to  be  observed  that  his  main  care 
was  not  to  keep  the  French  out  of  Louisiana,  but 
to  keep  them  out  of  New  Orleans,  and  thus  make 
sure  that  the  gateway  to  the  world's  markets  would 
remain  open  to  the  Mississippi  folk.  Already  Liv 
ingston  had  been  instructed  to  propose  a  cession  of 
the  Floridas  and  New  Orleans  to  the  United  States, 
and  in  this  same  letter  Jefferson  bade  him  inform 
the  French  Government  that  such  a  cession  "  would 
certainly,  to  a  great  degree,  remove  the  causes  of 
jealousy  and  irritation  between  us."  Still,  he  sig 
nificantly  added,  "we  should  consider  New  Orleans 

*  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  VIII,  p.  145. 


46      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

and  the  Floridas  as  equivalent  for  the  risk  of  a  quar 
rel  with  France  produced  by  her  vicinage."  *  In 
other  words,  it  would  be  the  part  of  wisdom  for 
France  to  forego  altogether  her  contemplated  occu 
pation  of  Louisiana.  Bold  language  this,  but 
language  that  would  have  had  no  effect  whatever 
upon  the  unshakable  Napoleon  had  it  not  been  for 
the  chance  concurrence  of  action  proceeding  from 
quite  another  quarter. 

Fully  resolved  to  carry  through  his  plans,  de 
terred  only  by  the  persistency  with  which  the  heroic 
negro  insurrectionists  of  San  Domingo  engaged-  the 
troops  designed  for  the  occupation  of  Louisiana, 
'Napoleon  suddenly  found  himself  face  to  face  with 
a  war-intending  England.  Lacking  command  of 
the  sea,  he  at  once  realized  the  necessity  of  aban 
doning  his  New  World  enterprise.  But  he  could  still 
hope  to  win  profit  from  it,  profit  in  money  and  profit 
in  friendship.  England,  he  told  himself,  must  never 
win  Louisiana.  Nor,  though  he  had  not  paid  for 
it,  would  he  hand  it  back  to  Spain.  He  would, 
instead,  transfer  it  to  the  United  States,  which,  he 
did  not  doubt,  would  be  willing  to  pay  handsomely 
for  it,  and  would  at  the  same  time  forgive  and  forget 
past  injuries  and  be  drawn  into  closer  relations  with 

*  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  VIII,  p.  146. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  47 

France  than  ever  before.  And  thus  it  happened 
that  when  Jefferson's  envoys,  Livingston  and 
Monroe,  in  the  spring  of  1803  formally  approached 
him  with  an  offer  for  the  purchase  of  New  Orleans 
and  the  Floridas,  they  were  informed  that  France 
did  not  have  the  Floridas  to  sell,  but  was  quite 
willing  to  part  not  only  with  New  Orleans,  but 
with  all  Louisiana. 

There  is  nothing  to  show  that  this  counter-offer 
had  been  anticipated  and  that  Monroe  and  Living 
ston  carried  secret  instructions  authorizing  them  to 
accept  it.  But,  confident  that  their  action  would 
be  indorsed  by  Jefferson,  Congress,  and  the  nation, 
they  did  not  hesitate.  Less  than  a  month  after 
Monroe's  arrival  the  treaty  was  signed,  doubling 
the  area  of  the  United  States  at  the  cost  of  a  beggarly 
fifteen  million  dollars,  and  setting  the  seal  on  her 
future  predominance  over  the  North  American 
continent.  Well  might  Livingston  exclaim:  "We 
have  lived  long,  but  this  is  the  noblest  work  of  our 
lives!"  And  well  might  Jefferson  feel,  when  the 
good  news  from  France  reached  America,  that  his 
dreams  were  at  last  coming  true  and  that  he  had 
been  justified  in  viewing  the  "Confederacy"  as  "the 
nest  from  which  all  America,  North  and  South,  is  to 
be  peopled." 


48      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

There  were,  to  be  sure,  certain  phases  of  the 
Purchase  that  troubled  him.  A  stickler  for  strict 
construction  of  the  Constitution,  he  could  find  no 
where  in  the  Constitution  authority  for  the  acquisi 
tion  of  territory;  and,  moreover,  such  acquisition 
would  do  violence  to  another  of  his  strongest  polit 
ical  beliefs  —  the  belief  that  government  derives  its 
just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  it 
being  evident  that  the  people  of  Louisiana  had  had 
no  voice  in  the  transaction.  But,  Constitution  or 
no  Constitution,  acquiescence  or  non-acquiescence, 
the  Purchase,  he  felt,  must  be  carried  through. 
Writing,  in  August,  to  the  Kentucky  Senator,  John 
C.  Breckinridge,  he  declared:  " Objections  are  rais 
ing  to  the  Eastward  against  the  vast  extent  of  our 
boundaries,  and  propositions  are  made  to  exchange 
Louisiana,  or  a  part  of  it,  for  the  Floridas.  But 
...  we  shall  get  the  Floridas  without,  and  I  would 
not  give  one  inch  of  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi 
to  any  nation,  because  I  see  in  a  light  very  impor 
tant  to  our  peace  an  exclusive  right  to  its  naviga 
tion,  and  the  admission  of  no  nation  into  it,  but  as 
into  the  Potomac  and  the  Delaware  with  our  con 
sent  and  under  our  police."  *  He  did,  indeed,  as  a 
compromise  with  his  fears  regarding  the  unconsti- 

*  Ford's  Edition,  vol.  VIII,  p.  243. 


THE  SIGNING  OF  THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  TREATY 
From  the  commemorative  statue  at  the  St.  Louis  Exposition. 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON  %          49 

tutional  character  of  the  transaction,  suggest  that 
the  Constitution  be  amended  to  permit  the  inclusion 
of  Louisiana  within  the  boundaries  of  the  United 
States,  and  went  so  far  as  to  draft  an  amendment  to 
that  effect.  But  when  Livingston  sent  him  word 
that  there  was  danger  of  Napoleon's  repenting  the 
Bargain  and  repudiating  his  agreement,  he  hesi 
tated  no  longer,  summoned  Congress  in  extra  ses 
sion,  and  forced  the  treaty  to  a  speedy  and  a  happy 
vote. 

Nor,  when  we  recall  his  earlier  declarations  with 
respect  to  the  future  of  the  United  States,  can  it  be 
deemed  surprising  that  he  chose  to  appear  a  mon 
ster  of  inconsistency  rather  than  sacrifice  the  splen 
did  opportunity  that  so  suddenly  presented  itself. 
On  the  contrary,  it  would  have  been  surprising  had 
he  not  pursued  exactly  the  course  he  did.  And, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  was  at  bottom  no  incon 
sistency  in  his  conduct.  Uphold  as  he  might  State 
rights,  limitations  of  government,  and  the  like,  not 
even  Hamilton  was  more  truly  nationalistic  at  heart 
than  was  Thomas  Jefferson.  His  fundamental  prin 
ciple  was  the  welfare  of  the  nation,  the  making  of 
the  nation  really  great  and  really  strong.  More 
than  this,  as  we  have  seen,  his  bounding  vision 
overleaped  the  confines  of  space  and  time,  hopefully 


50      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

anticipating  the  moment  when  his  country  would 
attain  those  "  destinies  beyond  the  reach  of  mortal 
eye."  He  did  not  expect  to  live  to  see  the  first  of 
the  great  extensions  of  which  he  spoke  so  prophet 
ically,  and  to  bring  about  which  he  labored  so  ear 
nestly.  But  a  kindly  fortune  granted  him  that 
boon,  and  when  the  hour  struck  he  was  not  found 
wanting. 


CHAPTER  III 

ANDREW  JACKSON  AND  THE  ACQUISITION  OF  FLORIDA 

IN  all  the  steps  whereby  the  American  people 
extended  their  dominion  from  sea  to  sea,  the  ele 
ment  of  inevitability  is  never  so  clearly  discernible 
as  in  the  acquisition  of  Florida.  Desirable  before, 
possession  of  Florida  became  essential  to  the  wel 
fare  of  the  nation  from  the  moment  of  the  Louisiana 
Purchase.  Its  geographical  situation  gave  it  com 
mand  over  the  marine  highway  between  the  old 
and  the  new  sections  of  the  United  States,  and  in 
alien  hands  it  thus  constituted  not  merely  an  un 
welcome  break  in  the  continuity  of  the  coast-line, 
but  a  possible  menace  to  American  shipping  and 
commerce.  There  was  always  the  danger,  too,  and 
a  danger  which  speedily  proved  very  real,  that  in 
time  of  war  it  might  be  utilized  by  a  foreign  power 
as  a  base  for  military  operations.  Its  owner,  Spain, 
was  notoriously  weak,  as  had  been  amply  demon 
strated  by  Napoleon's  course  in  the  matter  of 
Louisiana;  and  it  was  more  than  doubtful  whether 


52      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

she  could  enforce  the  neutrality  of  her  distant 
province  against  any  power  whatsoever.  For  the 
same  reason,  it  was  to  be  feared  that  if  the  United 
States  did  not  acquire  Florida  for  herself,  ownership 
might  pass  to  a  country  stronger  than  Spain  and  by 
so  much  the  more  undesirable  as  a  neighbor. 

There  were  also  minor  but  still  cogent  considera 
tions  urging  immediate  effort  to  extend  American 
sovereignty  to  the  peninsula.  It  was  watered,  in 
part,  by  navigable  streams  affording  American 
settlers  a  Gulf  outlet  for  their  products,  and  experi 
ence  had  shown  that  so  long  as  Spain  retained  con 
trol  of  these  streams  their  navigation  would  be 
impeded.  Again,  notwithstanding  Spain's  centuries 
of  occupation,  no  successful  attempt  at  colonization 
and  settlement  had  been  made,  and,  outside  of  a 
few  scattered  and  paltry  garrison  towns,  Florida 
was  almost  wholly  given  over  to  the  wilderness  and 
the  savage,  and  was  infested  by  a  motley  population 
of  Indians,  fugitive  slaves,  pirates,  and  outlaws  of 
every  sort,  who  waged  a  vindictive  warfare  against 
the  frontier  inhabitants  of  Louisiana  and  Georgia. 
This  also,  in  the  case  of  the  Indians  at  any  rate, 
despite  the  fact  that  Spain  had  by  treaty  solemnly 
pledged  herself  to  repress  hostile  outbreaks  against 
the  border  folk.  To  tell  the  truth,  she  was  not 


ANDREW  JACKSON  53 

strong  enough  to  keep  her  obligation ;  but  her  failure 
to  do  so  only  brought  home  more  forcibly  to  the 
American  Government  the  necessity  of  terminating 
a  state  of  affairs  that  promised  to  grow  constantly 
more  dangerous  to  the  peace  and  well-being  of  the 
Republic.  Indeed,  as  developed  in  the  course  of 
our  study  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  so  early  as 
1790  a  formal  proposition  was  framed  for  the  pur 
chase  of  Florida,  and  it  was  Florida  rather  than 
Louisiana  that  was  kept  steadily  in  view  through 
out  the  negotiations  which  ended  so  happily  in  1803. 
Immediately  thereafter  the  question  of  the  acquisi 
tion  of  Florida  was  raised  anew,  to  remain  unsettled, 
however,  until  fifteen  years  later  the  fearless  patriot 
ism  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  Americans  forced  it  to 
an  issue  in  accord  with  the  will  and  necessity  of  the 
nation. 

At  the  outset,  it  must  be  said,  the  United  States 
committed  a  tactical  blunder  quite  sufficient  to 
account  for  the  difficulty  experienced  in  securing 
Spain's  consent  to  part  with  her  peninsular  posses 
sion.  Ever  since  1763  Florida  had  been  divided 
into  two  parts  -  -  East  Florida,  including  all  of  the 
peninsula  and  westward  along  the  Gulf  coast  to  the 
Apalachicola  River,  and  West  Florida,  continuing 
along  the  coast  from  the  Apalachicola  to  the  Mis- 


54      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

sissippi.  Previous  to  that  time,  while  the  French 
were  in  possession  of  Louisiana,  that  part  of  West 
Florida  lying  between  the  rivers  Perdido  and  Mis 
sissippi  was  recognized  as  a  portion  of  Louisiana,  not 
of  Florida,  with  which  it  was  incorporated  only 
after  France  had  ceded  Louisiana  to  Spain,  and 
Spain  in  turn  had  transferred  Florida  to  England. 
Now,  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Treaty  had  not  de 
fined  the  bounds  of  the  territory  handed  over  to  the 
United  States  by  France  —  or  rather  by  Napoleon 
-  but  it  had  described  that  territory  as  "the  colony 
or  province  of  Louisiana  with  the  same  extent  that 
it  has  now  in  the  hands  of  Spain,  and  that  it  had 
when  France  possessed  it,  and  such  as  it  should  be 
after  the  treaties  subsequently  entered  into  between 
Spain  and  other  States."  Obviously,  this  amazingly 
vague  description  left  ample  scope  for  argument 
with  respect  to  that  portion  of  West  Florida  which 
had  once  belonged  unquestionably  to  Louisiana, 
and  now  seemed  to  be  as  unquestionably  part  of 
Florida;  but  the  United  States,  instead  of  endeavor 
ing  to  arrive  at  an  understanding  with  Spain,  to 
which  England  had  in  1783  re-transferred  Florida, 
took  it  for  granted  that  Louisiana  actually  extended 
eastward  to  the  Perdido,  and,  albeit  Spain  was  then 
in  active  occupation  of  the  country  between  the  Mis- 


ANDREW  JACKSON  55 

sissippi  and  the  Perdido,  in  1804  passed  the  so-called 
Mobile  Act  organizing  that  region  for  customs  pur 
poses  and  adding  it  to  the  Mississippi  Territory. 

Already  stung  to  the  quick  by  the  high-handed 
manner  in  which  Napoleon  had  disposed  of  Louisiana, 
Spain  was  instant  to  resent  this  step.  Her  Minister 
at  Washington,  the  Marquis  Casa  d'Yrujo,  penned 
a  burning  letter  of  remonstrance  to  Madison,*  who 
was  then  Secretary  of  State,  and  in  a  trice  there 
began  a  bitter  controversy  which  speedily  involved 
France  as  well  as  Spain  and  the  United  States. 
But  it  is  not  necessary  here  to  examine  the  details 
of  this  dispute  or  the  merits  of  the  question  at  issue. 
The  point  is  that  the  immediate  effect  was  to  render 
Spain  deaf  to  all  overtures  looking  to  a  settlement 
on  the  basis  of  purchase,  and  when,  some  months 
later,  Monroe  arrived  in  Madrid  eager  to  add  to 
his  Louisiana  laurels  by  effecting  a  similarly  satis 
factory  transaction  with  the  Spanish  Government, 
he  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  he  might  well 
have  spared  himself  the  journey.  It  must  be  noted, 
too,  that  in  the  United  States  itself  feeling  ran  high, 
and,  as  in  the  days  antedating  the  Louisiana  pur 
chase,  there  was  talk  of  invasion  and  conquest. 

*This  letter  is  printed  in  part  in  H.  B.  Fuller's  "The  Purchase  of 
Florida,"  pp.  122-24. 


56      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Hope  was  still  cherished,  nevertheless,  by  President 
Jefferson  and  his  advisers  that  money,  not  war, 
would  suffice  for  the  winning  of  Florida;  and  to 
that  end,  though  with  considerable  difficulty,  Con 
gress  was  persuaded,  in  the  winter  of  1805-6,  to  pass 
a  bill  appropriating  two  million  dollars  for  negotia 
tions  with  foreign  powers,  it  being  understood  that 
the  appropriation  was  made  with  a  view  to  the  pur 
chase  of  Florida. 

But  again  diplomacy  proved  barren  of  result,  this 
time  for  the  twofold  reason  that  Spain  was  still  in 
a  state  of  excessive  irritation,  and  was  also  confident 
that  the  European  situation  had  become  such  as  to 
preclude  any  attempt  to  oust  her  from  Florida  by 
force.  Shortly,  too,  relations  between  the  two 
countries  were  abruptly  and  involuntarily  interrupted 
by  the  outbreak  of  the  bloody  revolution  that  was 
to  mark  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  Napoleonic 
despotism.  In  this  way  the  status  quo,  so  far  as 
concerned  Florida,  continued  unchanged  until  1810, 
when  there  began  a  series  of  events  that  brought  to 
the  United  States  a  lively  sense  of  the  necessity  of 
taking  firmer  action  than  hitherto,  and  that  should 
have  aroused  Spain  to  a  realization  of  the  wisdom 
of  relinquishing  Florida  while  there  was  still  time 
to  drive  a  favorable  bargain. 


ANDREW  JACKSON  57 

The  first  of  these  events  was  an  insurrection  in 
West  Florida.  Taking  advantage  of  the  distressful 
condition  of  Spain,  and  infected  by  the  revolutionary 
spirit  that  had  already  plunged  the  South  American 
provinces  into  anarchy,  a  party  of  turbulent  West 
Floridians,  mostly  fugitives  from  the  justice  of  other 
lands,  banded  themselves  together  to  throw  off  the 
Spanish  yoke,  and  with  little  difficulty  took  by 
storm  the  fort  at  Baton  Rouge.  Their  next  move, 
after  declaring  a  free  and  independent  government, 
was  to  offer  to  turn  the  province  over  to  the  United 
States  for  a  substantial  consideration.  Madison, 
who  had  now  succeeded  Jefferson  in  the  Presidency, 
replied  to  this  offer  promptly,  though  not  in  the  way 
the  revolutionists  had  anticipated.  Declaring,  in  a 
proclamation  of  October  27,  1810,  that  there  had 
been  far  too  much  delay  in  adjusting  the  conflicting 
claims  of  the  United  States  and  Spain,  he  directed 
Governor  Claiborne,  of  Orleans  Territory,  to  take 
immediate  possession  of  all  the  country  from  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Perdido,  and  to  govern  it  as  part 
of  his  own  Territory,  with  the  understanding,  how 
ever,  "that  in  the  hands  of  the  United  States  it  will 
not  cease  to  be  a  subject  of  fair  and  friendly  negotia 
tion  and  adjustment." 

For  this  action  Madison  was  bitterly  criticised  at 


58      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  time,  and  has  been  even  more  bitterly  criticised 
since.  But,  apart  from  the  question  of  his  possible 
usurpation  of  the  legislative  power,  the  course  he 
adopted  was  in  reality  the  only  course  open  to  him 
consistent  with  safeguarding  the  interests  of  his 
country.  It  was  evident  that  Spanish  authority  in 
West  Florida  had  given  place  to  a  lawless  and  irre 
sponsible  government,  which  it  was  impossible  to 
recognize,  and  the  continuance  of  which  it  was 
equally  impossible  to  endure;*  it  was  also  clear 
that  Spain  was  in  no  position  to  restore  order;  and 
it  was  apparent,  again,  that  warrant  for  American 
intervention  could  be  found  in  the  still  unsettled 
claim,  based  on  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Treaty, 
that  all  of  West  Florida  between  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Perdido  was  actually  American  territory.  Madi 
son's  policy,  in  short,  was  a  policy  dictated  by  the 
necessities  of  self-defense,  not  by  sheer  greed  for 
land,  as  is  alleged  by  those  who  delight  in  depicting 
the  United  States'  attitude  to  Spain,  with  respect  to 
Florida,  as  that  of  a  bandit  intent  on  plunder. 
Similarly  with  the  subsequent  temporary  occupa 
tion  of  Amelia  Island,  off  the  Atlantic  coast  of  East 
Florida,  though  here  there  is  some  real  ground  for 
criticism  in  the  manner  in  which  the  occupation 

*  On  this  point,  see  Fuller's  "The  Purchase  of  Florida,"  pp.  181-86. 


ANDREW  JACKSON  59 

was  effected.  And  in  the  same  justifiable  principle 
of  self-defense  will  be  found  the  true  historical 
explanation  of  the  step  taken  a  year  or  so  later  by 
the  man  to  whom,  above  all  others,  must  be  given 
the  credit  of  bringing  Spain  to  reason. 

This  was  Andrew  Jackson,  as  yet  little  known 
outside  his  own  State  of  Tennessee,  whither  he  had 
come  from  the  Carolinas  in  1788  as  a  young  man  of 
the  humblest  birth,  without  money  and  without 
friends,  his  sole  reliance  native  wit  and  native 
courage.  Making  his  home  at  Nashville,  when  it 
was  still  a  crude  border  settlement  bounded  by 
pathless  forests,  he  had  plunged  with  ardor  into  the 
task,  not  only  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  but  of  better 
ing  the  community  in  which  he  had  elected  to  dwell. 
His  first  occupation,  that  of  district  attorney,  proved 
his  mettle,  for  in  those  days  a  district  attorney  had 
to  take  his  life  in  his  hands,  such  was  the  lawlessness 
rampant  in  the  frontier  country.  At  Indian  fight 
ing,  too,  he  showed  himself  utterly  devoid  of  fear. 
And  if,  as  was  only  too  apparent,  he  displayed  in 
his  conduct  with  his  fellows  an  acrimony  and  blunt- 
ness  of  speech,  an  over-readiness  to  take  offense, 
and  an  uncompromising  assertiveness,  these  were 
defects  readily  condoned  in  one  of  such  manifest 
honesty,  integrity,  straightforwardness,  and  daring. 


60      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Thus  it  happened  that  within  an  incredibly  short 
time  Jackson  had  become  one  of  the  most  popular 
as  well  as  one  of  the  most  respected  citizens  of 
Tennessee,  and,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  gravi 
tated  into  politics,  serving  for  a  brief  space  in  both 
Houses  of  Congress.  But,  finding  himself  out  of 
his  element  in  Washington,  and  longing  for  the 
free,  open,  and  ultra-democratic  life  of  the  Western 
country,  he  had  speedily  resigned,  and  hastened 
home  to  preside  over  the  Supreme  Court  of  Tennes 
see,  to  gain  election  as  Major-General  of  the  State 
militia,  and  to  engage  in  business.  As  judge,  as 
soldier,  and  as  business  man  he  had  steadily  aug 
mented  his  reputation  until  his  brother  Tennesseans 
fairly  came  to  idolize  him.  Their  ideals,  they 
plainly  saw,  were  his  ideals,  their  interests  his. 
Like  them,  he  held  an  abiding  faith  in  the  possi 
bilities  and  future  of  the  land  in  which  they  lived; 
like  them,  he  felt  the  instinct  for  growth  and  expan 
sion;  and  —  what  is  most  important  in  the  present 
connection  —  like  them  he  would  brush  aside,  with 
fiery  impatience,  all  that  might  hamper  expression 
of  that  instinct. 

Such  was  the  man  -  -  imperious,  impetuous, 
masterful,  and  passionate,  protagonist  par  excellence 
of  the  spirit  of  the  early  West  —  who  by  virtue  of 


S 

y  1 


If 
§1 


e  a 


ANDREW  JACKSON  61 

his  rank  in  the  Tennessee  militia  took  command,  in 
the  opening  days  of  1813,  of  a  formidable  force  of 
sturdy  frontiersmen,  " called  out  for  the  defense  of 
the  lower  country."  Two  years  earlier,  anticipat 
ing  the  outbreak  of  war  with  England  and  recogniz 
ing  the  possibility  of  Florida  being  occupied  by  the 
enemy  for  hostile  purposes,  Congress  had  authorized 
the  President  to  take  temporary  possession  of  any 
part  or  all  of  that  Spanish  province  "in  the  event  of 
an  attempt  to  occupy  the  said  territory,  or  any  part 
thereof,  by  any  foreign  power."  Now  that  war  had 
actually  arrived,  Madison  was  determined  that  the 
contingency  of  foreign  occupation  should  not  arise. 
To  this  end  had  Jackson's  army  been  created,  an 
army  of  which  Jackson  himself  wrote  enthusiasti 
cally:  "They  go  at  our  country's  call  to  do  the  will 
of  the  Government.  No  constitutional  scruples 
trouble  them.  Nay,  they  will  rejoice  at  the  oppor 
tunity  of  placing  the  American  eagle  on  the  ramparts 
of  Mobile,  Pensacola,  and  Fort  St.  Augustine."* 
As  luck  would  have  it,  however,  the  Congress  of 
1813  was  of  a  different  temper  from  the  Congress 
of  1811,  and  refused  to  support  Madison  in  the 
projected  occupation,  the  consequence  being  that 

*  Jackson  to  Secretary  Eustis,  in  James  Parton's  "The  Life  of  Andrew 
Jackson,"  vol.  II,  p.  372. 


62      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Jackson  and  his  men,  without  having  accomplished 
anything,  were  forced  to  march  home  and  leave 
the  enemy  free  to  utilize  Florida  at  will. 

Out  of  this  freedom  flowed  momentous  results 
to  Jackson  and  to  the  nation.  In  the  late  autumn 
of  that  same  year,  instigated  by  English  emissaries 
and  armed  from  an  English  fleet,  the  Creek  Indians 
took  the  war-path  against  the  American  settlers 
of  the  extreme  South.  The  length  and  breadth 
of  the  border  they  harried,  consummating,  on 
August  30,  the  ghastly  Fort  Mims  massacre,  when 
out  of  five  hundred  and  fifty  soldiers  and  refugees  in 
a  pioneer  stockade  four  hundred  perished.  Burn 
ing  for  vengeance,  Jackson  and  his  Tennesseans 
flew  to  arms,  and  now  began  a  war  within  a  war,  and 
a  war  of  extermination.  All  through  the  winter  it 
raged  and  on  until  the  spring,  when,  after  the  fear 
ful  battle  of  the  Horseshoe,  the  stricken  Creeks,  all 
but  annihilated,  were  glad  to  sue  for  peace.  Then 
followed  a  brief  rest  for  Jackson,  but  exceedingly 
brief.  His  splendid  campaigning  had  won  him  the 
appointment  of  Major- General  in  the  United  States 
army  to  succeed  "Tippecanoe"  Harrison,  who  had 
resigned,  and  summer  found  him  in  the  field  again, 
this  time  in  supreme  command  of  the  military  de 
partment  of  the  South. 


ANDREW   JACKSON  63 

Always  chafing  under  the  lost  opportunity  to  raise 
the  American  flag  in  Florida,  and  doubly  embittered 
by  the  knowledge  that  England  had  profited  thereby, 
almost  his  first  move  was  to  write  to  the  Secretary 
of  War  for  permission  to  invade  the  peninsula.  No 
reply  coming,  and  news  reaching  him  that  an  Eng 
lish  force  had  landed  at  Pensacola,  the  capital  of 
West  Florida,  he  resolved,  with  characteristic  reck 
lessness,  to  delay  no  longer.  But  before  he  could 
make  a  beginning  the  English  themselves  assumed 
the  aggressive,  sailing  from  Pensacola  to  Mobile, 
whence  they  were  soon  compelled  to  sail  again  in 
less  magnificent  array.  Eager  to  pursue,  Jackson 
awaited  only  the  arrival  of  reinforcements,  and  when 
these  came,  twenty-five  hundred  strong,  from  his 
beloved  Tennessee,  he  was  up  and  off.  Marching 
across  country,  with  the  tempestuous  celerity  that 
had  already  begun  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
entire  country,  he  appeared  before  Pensacola  three 
days  after  his  departure  from  Mobile,  served  on 
the  Spanish  Governor  a  summary  demand  for  sur 
render,  and  followed  this  up  by  an  assault  that 
forced  speedy  capitulation.  In  Fort  Barrancas, 
near  by,  he  found  a  small  English  garrison,  but  this 
escaped  him,  pausing  in  its  flight  only  long  enough 
to  destroy  the  fort.  Less  than  a  week  later  he  was 


64      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

back  in  Mobile,  passing  thence  by  leisurely  stages 
to  New  Orleans  and  the  battle  that  won  him  an 
enduring  place  among  the  heroes  of  American 
history. 

What  had  been  theoretically  asserted  by  the  Presi 
dent  and  by  Congress  had  been  translated  into  action 
by  Andrew  Jackson.  The  United  States  was  not 
at  war  with  Spain;  Florida  was  the  territory  of  a 
supposedly  friendly  power;  yet  its  soil  had  been 
invaded,  its  flag  trampled  in  the  dust,  its  people 
attacked.  Nor  could  Spain  with  justice  complain. 
Willingly  or  unwillingly,  she  had  committed  flagrant 
breaches  of  neutrality.  She  had  permitted  English 
troops  to  garrison  her  forts,  English  fleets  to  rendez 
vous  in  her  harbors,  and  English  officers  to  enlist 
within  her  borders  savage  allies  against  England's 
foes.  It  mattered  not  that  she  had  been  too  weak 
to  oppose  effectively  the  English  occupation;  this 
fact  alone  should  have  convinced  her,  as  it  had 
fully  convinced  the  United  States,  that  the  sooner 
she  let  go  of  Florida  the  better.  Nevertheless, 
order  having  been  re-established  at  home,  and  with 
order  a  resumption  of  diplomatic  relations  with 
America,  she  added  Jackson's  operations  to  the 
category  of  wrongs  inflicted  on  her,  and  resumed 
her  old  course  of  tortuous  and  procrastinating 


ANDREW  JACKSON  65 

diplomacy.  To  persuade  her  of  the  folly  of  this 
course  required  another  concrete  demonstration  of 
the  lengths  to  which  the  United  States  was  prepared 
to  go  if  self-defense  demanded,  and  again  the  needed 
lesson  was  read  by  Andrew  Jackson. 

The  end  of  the  war  had  by  no  means  marked  the 
end  of  English  influence  in  Florida.  English  offi 
cers,  and  especially  a  Colonel  Nicholls,  commandant 
of  the  garrison  that  Jackson  had  expelled  from 
Fort  Barrancas,  lingered  in  the  peninsula  even  after 
peace  had  been  declared,  and  spent  much  of  their 
time  in  exciting  the  Florida  Indians,  the  Seminoles, 
to  renewed  hostilities  against  the  border  settlers. 
Nicholls,  in  fact,  went  so  far  as  to  conclude  an  offen 
sive  and  defensive  alliance  between  England  and 
the  Indians,  rebuild  and  equip  an  old  fort  on  the 
Apalachicola,  and  demand  in  the  name  of  the 
Indians  a  surrender  of  the  lands  ceded  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Creeks  as  the  price  of  peace.  After 
his  departure  for  England,  in  the  vain  hope  of 
securing  from  his  Government  official  approval  of 
these  acts,  the  fort  on  the  Apalachicola  was  seized 
by  a  number  of  fugitive  slaves  from  Georgia  and 
converted  into  a  piratical  stronghold  of  the  worst 
description.  Using  it  as  a  base,  they  ravaged  the 
country  for  miles  across  the  border,  destroying  the 


66      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

property  of  their  former  masters,  stealing  horses 
and  cattle,  rescuing  criminals,  and  killing  all  who 
resisted  them.  No  doubt  they  could  find  some  justi 
fication  for  their  acts  in  the  principle  of  retaliation, 
for  the  Georgians  themselves  were  not  models  of 
law  and  order;  but  their  brigandage  and  rapine  soon 
became  unendurable,  and  at  the  direction  of  the 
Secretary  of  War  a  message  was  sent  by  Jackson  to 
the  Governor  of  Pensacola  demanding  immediate 
action  against  them. 

With  this  demand  the  Governor  was  either  un 
willing  or  unable  to  comply,  and  at  once  the  wrath 
ful  Jackson  resolved  to  act  on  his  own  account. 
"I  have  no  doubt,"  he  wrote  to  General  Gaines, 
who  was  then  building  stockades  and  blockhouses 
in  the  adjacent  territory  ceded  by  the  Creeks,  "that 
this  fort  has  been  established  by  some  villains  for 
the  purpose  of  murder,  rapine,  and  plunder,  and 
that  it  ought  to  be  blown  up  regardless  of  the  ground 
it  stands  on.  If  you  have  come  to  the  same  conclu 
sion,  destroy  it  and  restore  the  stolen  negroes  to 
their  rightful  owners."  *  It  so  happened  that 
Gaines  had  ordered  from  New  Orleans  some  sup 
plies  that  would  have  to  be  carried  past  "  Negro 

*  Jackson  to  Gaines,  April  18,  1816,  in  Fuller's  "The  Purchase  of 
Florida,"  p.  229. 


ANDREW  JACKSON  67 

Fort,"  as  it  was  popularly  called;  and  he  now  in 
structed  one  of  his  officers,  Colonel  Clinch,  to  pro 
ceed  down  the  Apalachicola  with  a  body  of  troops 
and  level  the  fort  to  the  ground  at  the  first  sign  of 
an  attack  on  the  transports.  Coming  down  the 
river,  Clinch  fell  in  with  a  party  of  Seminoles  who 
had  their  own  grievances  against  the  negroes,  and 
he  promptly  pressed  them  into  service  and  hurried 
on  to  the  fort,  near  which  he  found  the  supply  expe 
dition.  Excuse  for  hostilities  was  ready  at  hand 
in  the  fact  that  a  boat's  crew,  landing  for  water, 
had  lost  four  men  in  an  attack  by  the  negroes. 
Forthwith  Clinch  demanded  the  surrender  of  the 
fort,  and  obtaining  in  reply  a  defiant  blast  of  can 
nonading,  opened  fire  from  a  gunboat  convoying 
the  transports. 

The  first  few  shots  did  little  damage,  but  victory 
came  with  amazing  and  shocking  swiftness.  In 
the  fort's  magazine  some  seven  hundred  barrels  of 
gunpowder  were  stored,  and  a  red-hot  ball  striking 
this  caused  an  explosion  that  ended  " Negro  Fort" 
for  all  time,  and  cost  the  lives  of  almost  all  its  de 
fenders.  No  fewer  than  two  hundred  and  seventy 
men,  women,  and  children  found  an  instant  death, 
while  of  those  still  living,  after  the  smoke  had  cleared 
away,  only  a  pitiful  minority  endured  the  torments 


68      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

of  their  wounds.  It  must  be  added,  also,  that  at 
least  two  of  the  miserable  survivors  were  handed 
over  to  the  Indians  to  be  cruelly  tortured  so  long  as 
a  spark  of  life  remained  in  their  mutilated  bodies  - 
an  apt  illustration  of  the  truth  that  the  inhumanity  of 
those  barbarous  years  of  border  warfare  was  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  enemies  of  the  United  States. 
This  fearful  tragedy  was  but  the  opening  act  in 
the  second  Jacksonian  invasion  of  Florida.  Fresh 
grounds  for  complaint  against  the  Spanish  authori 
ties  soon  developed  in  a  renewal  of  hostilities  by 
the  Seminoles,  the  climax  coming  when,  in  revenge 
for  the  burning  of  a  native  village  by  American 
troops,  the  savages  ambushed  and  massacred  nearly 
fifty  soldiers  and  settlers  en  route  up  the  Apalachicola. 
At  news  of  this,  the  War  Department  sent  orders  to 
Jackson  to  raise  a  large  force,  take  command  in 
person,  and  spare  no  efforts  to  bring  about  a  lasting 
peace.  But  before  these  orders  reached  him,  Jack 
son  himself  had  addressed  to  Monroe,  then  Presi 
dent,  a  letter  seething  with  indignation.  It  would 
be  well,  he  declared,  to  seize  the  whole  of  East  Florida 
and  hold  it  "as  indemnity  for  the  outrages  of  Spain 
upon  the  property  of  our  citizens."  This  he  felt 
certain  could  be  done  "  without  implicating  the 
government."  And,  in  conclusion,  he  roundly 


ANDREW  JACKSON  69 

asserted:  "Let  it  be  signified  to  me  through  any 
channel  (say  Mr.  J.  Rhea)  that  the  possession  of  the 
Floridas  would  be  desirable  to  the  United  States, 
and  in  sixty  days  it  will  be  accomplished."  *  What 
reply,  if  any,  was  made  to  this  letter  will  probably 
never  be  known.  According  to  Monroe,  he  received 
it  during  an  attack  of  illness,  laid  it  away,  forgot  all 
about  it,  and  did  not  even  read  it  until  after  the  war 
had  come  to  an  end.  Jackson  maintained,  to  the 
contrary,  that  the  President  had  actually  instructed 
Mr.  Rhea  (a  Congressman  from  Tennessee)  to  write 
saying  that  his  plan  was  approved,  and  that  Rhea's 
reply  was  received  by  him  before  he  crossed  the 
border. f  Whatever  the  truth,  across  the  border  he 
went,  in  March,  1818,  at  the  head  of  an  army  of 
about  three  thousand,  including  a  thousand  of  his 
veteran  Tennesseans  and  rather  less  than  a  thousand 
friendly  Indians. 
There  were  to  be  no  half-way  measures  now. 

*This  letter  is  printed  in  Jackson's  "Exposition"  of  his  conduct  in 
Florida,  in  Thomas  Hart  Benton's  "Thirty  Years'  View,"  vol.  I,  pp. 
167-180.  The  "Exposition"  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  features  of 
Benton's  work,  which  contains  much  of  value  to  the  student  of  Amer 
ican  expansion,  especially  in  connection  with  the  acquisition  of  Florida, 
Texas,  Oregon,  and  California. 

t  Professor  Schouler  has  reviewed  the  controversy  in  detail  in  a  paper 
contributed  to  The  Magazine  of  American  History,  vol.  XII,  pp.  308- 
322.  His  conclusion  is  that  "Monroe  never  read  nor  reflected  upon 
Jackson's  letter  at  all  until  after  Pensacola  had  fallen." 


70      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Writing  to  Captain  McKeever,  commissioned  to 
co-operate  with  him  by  sea,  Jackson  designated 
St.  Mark's  as  the  first  point  of  attack,  instructed 
McKeever  to  meet  him  there,  and  significantly 
added:  "You  will  .  .  .  capture  and  make  prisoners 
all,  or  every  person,  or  description  of  persons,  white, 
red,  or  black,  with  all  their  goods,  chattels,  and 
effects,  together  with  all  crafts,  vessels,  or  means  of 
transportation  by  water.  .  .  .  Any  of  the  subjects 
of  His  Catholic  Majesty  sailing  to  St.  Mark's  may 
be  permitted  freely  to  enter  the  said  river.  But 
none  to  pass  out,  unless  after  an  examination  it  may 
be  made  to  appear  that  they  have  not  been  attached 
to  or  in  any  wise  aided  and  abetted  our  common 
enemy."*  The  meaning  of  this  language  was  plain 
enough.  To  blockade  Spanish  ports,  to  seize 
Spanish  property,  and  to  make  prisoners  of  Spanish 
subjects  —  such  was  Jackson's  program.  Inci 
dentally,  he  proposed  capturing,  if  possible,  certain 
Englishmen  at  whose  door  he  laid  the  chief  respon 
sibility  for  the  present  Indian  rising,  and  who,  he 
had  reason  to  believe,  were  then  at  St.  Mark's, 
together  with  two  Indian  chieftains  who  had  proved 
especially  malevolent. 

*  Jackson  to  McKeever,  in  Parton's  "The  Life  of  Andrew  Jackson," 
vol.  II,  p.  448. 


ANDREW   JACKSON  71 

To  St.  Mark's,  then,  he  hastened,  as  did  McKeever, 
the  latter  scrupling  not  to  sail  into  the  bay  under 
the  English  flag,  and  by  this  disgraceful  ruse  lure 
aboard  the  chieftains  for  whose  lives  Jackson 
thirsted.  Jackson's  own  course  was  openness  itself. 
Frankly  informing  the  Spanish  commandant  that 
so  long  as  the  struggle  with  the  Indians  lasted  it 
would  be  necessary  to  occupy  St.  Mark's  with 
American  troops,  he  marched  his  men  into  the  town, 
hauled  down  the  Spanish  flag,  and  raised  in  its 
stead  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  No  damage  was  done 
to  person  or  property,  and  only  one  prisoner  taken 
—  a  Scotchman,  Alexander  Arbuthnot,  an  aged 
Indian  trader  who  was  suspected  of  having  intrigued 
against  American  interests.  Next  day,  without  so 
much  as  the  semblance  of  a  trial,  McKeever's  native 
captives  were  hanged,  a  fate  which  they  richly 
deserved;  and  a  start  was  made  at  once  for  the  In 
dian  stronghold  of  Suwanee,  far  to  the  east  and  in 
the  midst  of  swamps  accounted  impassable.  A 
week  of  arduous  marching  and  the  goal  was  reached, 
too  late,  however,  to  surprise  the  Indians,  who  had 
taken  hurried  flight,  warned  by  a  note  that  Arbuth 
not  had  despatched  to  his  son,  also  a  trader.  The 
town  destroyed,  back  went  Jackson  to  St.  Mark's, 
taking  with  him  as  prisoner  an  Englishman,  Robert 


72      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Ambrister,  a  gentleman  of  family  but  not  of  the  best 
of  reputations,  who  by  mischance  wandered  into 
the  American  camp. 

At  St.  Mark's  once  more,  not  a  moment  was  lost 
in  placing  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister  on  trial  for 
their  lives.  "It  is  all-important,"  Jackson  had 
written  McKeever,  "that  these  men  should  be 
captured  and  made  examples  of,"  and  the  failure  of 
the  expedition  to  Suwanee  had  not  disposed  him  to 
modify  in  any  way  the  merciless  course  mapped  out 
in  that  letter.  Arbuthnot  stood  charged  with  incit 
ing  the  Indians  to  war  against  the  United  States, 
supplying  them  with  munitions  of  war,  and  acting 
as  a  spy;  Ambrister  was  accused  of  personally 
making  war  against  the  United  States,  and  aiding 
the  enemies  of  the  United  States.  There  was  no 
particularly  strong  evidence  against  either,  yet  the 
court  martial  that  tried  them  sentenced  both  to 
death,  Arbuthnot  to  be  hanged,  Ambrister  to  be 
shot.  In  Ambrister's  case  the  sentence  was  after 
wards  commuted  by  the  court  martial  to  flogging 
and  a  year's  imprisonment,  but  Jackson,  who 
seemed  for  the  moment  to  have  given  way  com 
pletely  to  the  violence  of  his  passions,  ordered  the 
original  sentence  to  be  carried  into  effect.  Thus 
two  British  subjects  perished,  on  the  soil  of  a  friendly 


ANDREW  JACKSON  73 

Power,  and  at  the  arbitrary  command  of  an  armed 
representative  of  a  third  Power,  with  which  both 
the  others  were  supposed  to  be  at  peace.* 

Now  word  was  brought  to  the  still  unappeased 
Jackson,  that  a  large  number  of  Indians  said  to  be 
more  than  five  hundred  in  all,  had  sought  refuge 
at  Pensacola,  and  were  receiving  asylum  there. 
Foaming  with  rage,  he  detached  from  his  main 
body  a  mixed  force  of  regulars  and  Tennesseans, 
and  set  off  to  the  West  Floridian  capital  fast  as 
his  troops  could  march.  Nor  did  he  halt  on  receipt 
of  a  letter  from  the  Spanish  Governor  protesting  in 
the  name  of  the  King  of  Spain  against  his  invasion 
of  that  monarch's  territory,  and  threatening  to  expel 
him  unless  he  withdrew  at  once.  His  only  reply 
was  to  urge  his  men  to  greater  speed.  Arrived  at 
Pensacola,  whence  the  Governor  fled  precipitately 
to  Fort  Barrancas,  he  mastered  that  town  as  easily 
as  he  had  mastered  St.  Mark's,  ran  up  the  American 
flag,  and  quickly  forced  the  surrender  of  Barrancas 
with  the  Governor  and  three  hundred  Spanish  troops. 
All  Florida  now  lay  at  his  mercy,  prostrate  and 
helpless;  but,  contenting  himself  with  leaving  garri 
sons  in  the  captured  forts,  he  recrossed  the  border 

*The  evidence  given  at  the  trial  will  be  found  in  "American  State 
Papers  —  Foreign  Relations,"  vol.  IV,  pp.  580-596. 


74      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

in  a  few  days  with  the  bulk  of  his  army,  confident 
that  what  he  had  already  accomplished  would  be 
quite  sufficient  to  bring  Spain  to  terms. 

He  was  hardly  prepared  for  the  storm  that  at  once 
burst  about  his  head.  Not  only  in  England,  Spain, 
and  European  countries  generally  was  he  denounced 
as  a  bandit,  a  murderer,  and  a  high-handed  violator 
of  the  laws  of  nations,  but  in  his  own  country  he 
found  himself  the  target  for  unrestrained  abuse.  It 
mattered  not  that  the  public  at  large  applauded  his 
actions  and  sang  his  praises  as  a  true  American  who 
would  dare  and  do  whenever  national  interests 
required.  The  President,  the  Cabinet,  and  Con 
gress,  fearful  that  war  with  both  England  and  Spain 
was  certain  to  eventuate,  debated  long  and  earnestly 
the  best  way  out  of  what  seemed  to  them  an  exceed 
ingly  bad  business.  Throughout  the  summer  Cabi 
net  meetings  were  held  almost  daily,  and  at  these 
Jackson's  sole  defender  was  the  Secretary  of  State, 
John  Quincy  Adams.  All  save  Adams  were  for 
disavowing  his  conduct  in  toto  and  making  suitable 
reparation;  but  Adams,  with  an  inflexibility  that 
would  have  done  credit  to  Jackson  himself,  insisted 
that  the  necessities  of  the  case  amply  justified  Jack 
son's  proceedings,  and  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  the 
responsibility  lay  not  at  his  door  but  at  the  door  of 


ANDREW  JACKSON  75 

the  Spanish  commanding  officers  in  Florida.  In 
the  end,  but  only  after  a  prolonged  struggle,  Adams 
won  his  point;  and  the  United  States  made  known 
to  the  .world  its  intention  of  standing  by  the  fiery 
warrior  from  Tennessee,  whatever  the  consequences. 
The  consequences  were  the  tacit  approval  by 
England  of  his  execution  of  Arbuthnot  and  Am- 
brister,  and  the  cession  of  Florida  by  Spain.  To 
the  latter  result  Adams  again  contributed  powerfully 
and  most  of  all  by  a  letter  he  wrote  in  November, 
1818,  ostensibly  addressed  to  the  American  Minis 
ter  at  Madrid,  but  in  reality  being  in  the  nature  of 
an  ultimatum  to  the  Spanish  Government.  Seldom 
indeed  has  an  American  statesman  penned  a  more 
noteworthy  document.  Reviewing  in  the  fullest 
detail  the  long-standing  grievances  of  the  United 
States  against  Spain,  the  repeated  breaches  of 
neutrality,  the  outrages  committed  by  Indians,  fugi 
tive  slaves,  and  outlaws  who  found  sanctuary  in 
Spain's  dominions,  her  toleration  of  the  acts  of  aliens 
like  Nicholls,  Arbuthnot,  and  Ambrister,  and  her 
constant  failure  to  fulfil  treaty  obligations,  Adams 
declared  bluntly:  " Spain  must  immediately  make 
her  election  either  to  place  a  force  in  Florida  at  once 
adequate  for  the  protection  of  her  territory  and  to  the 
fulfilment  of  her  engagements,  or  cede  to  the  United 


76      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

States  a  province  of  which  she  retains  nothing  but 
the  nominal  possession,  but  which  is,  in  fact,  a  dere 
lict,  open  to  the  occupancy  of  every  enemy,  civilized 
or  savage,  of  the  United  States,  and  serving  no  other 
earthly  purpose  than  as  a  point  of  annoyance  to 
them.  .  .  .  The  duty  of  this  Government  to  pro 
tect  the  persons  and  property  of  our  fellow-citizens 
on  the  borders  of  the  United  States  is  imperative 
—  it  must  be  discharged."*  There  was  no  mistak 
ing  such  language,  and  there  was  no  denying  the 
fact  that  so  long  as  the  United  States  held  men  like 
Andrew  Jackson,  Spain  could  not  hope  to  keep  to 
her  old  ways  with  impunity.  Alive  at  last  to  the 
dangers  of  the  situation,  and  well  aware  that  it  was 
impossible  for  her  to  maintain  an  efficient  govern 
ment  in  Florida,  she  announced  her  willingness  to 
negotiate  a  treaty  of  cession,  which  was  finally  con 
cluded  and  signed  in  Washington,  February  22, 
1819;  its  definite  ratification,  however,  being  de 
layed  for  various  reasons  until  two  years  afterwards. 
July  10,  1821,  the  United  States  formally  took  pos 
session,  having  already,  fittingly  enough,  appointed 
as  the  first  Governor  of  its  new  Territory  the  vic 
torious  Andrew  Jackson. 

*  John  Quincy  Adams  to  George  W.  Erving,  in  "American  State 
Papers  —  Foreign  Relations,"  vol.  IV,  p.  544. 


ANDREW  JACKSON  77 

It  remains  to  be  added  that  by  the  terms  of  the 
treaty  the  seed  was  sown  for  another  harvest  of 
trouble.  In  addition  to  the  actual  transfer  of  terri 
tory,  the  monetary  consideration  for  which  was  five 
million  dollars  to  be  paid  by  the  United  States,  not 
to  Spain,  but  to  American  claimants  having  bills 
against  Spain  for  damages  dating  back  in  some 
instances  to  the  first  Napoleonic  war,  the  Florida 
treaty  fixed  for  the  first  time  the  boundaries  of  the 
region  acquired  by  the  United  States  in  the  Louisiana 
Purchase.  Here  a  distinct  concession  was  made  by 
the  United  States,  which  began  negotiations  with 
the  claim  that  in  the  southwest  Louisiana  extended 
to  the  Rio  Grande,  but  ended  by  accepting  the 
Sabine  as  the  boundary  line  in  that  direction.  Thus, 
to  the  intense  indignation  of  the  Western  settlers, 
whatever  title  the  United  States  had  to  the  fertile 
plains  of  Texas  was  specifically  relinquished.  On 
the  other  hand,  Spain  relinquished  no  less  specifically 
her  shadowy  claim  to  the  so-called  Oregon  country 
in  the  northwest  —  the  vast  expanse  of  territory 
bounded  by  the  Rockies,  the  Pacific,  California,  and 
Russian  North  America.  Both  relinquishments, 
as  we  shall  see,  were  soon  to  prove  disturbing  ele 
ments  in  the  political  life  of  the  American  nation. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SAM  HOUSTON  AND  THE  ANNEXATION  OF  TEXAS 

FOLLOWING  the  acquisition  of  Florida  an  entirely 
new  period  opens  in  the  history  of  the  territorial 
growth  of  the  United  States.  Inevitability  is  still 
the  dominant  characteristic  of  the  expansion  move 
ment;  but  now  it  is  conditioned,  and  most  powerfully, 
by  an  element  that  had  little  or  no  influence  in  the 
earlier  acquisitions.  This  was  the  element  of  sec 
tionalism,  born  of  the  institution  of  slavery.  Prior 
to  the  treaty  of  1819,  by  which  Florida  became  a 
part  of  the  United  States,  the  urgent  necessity  of 
combined  action  against  external  dangers  had  pre 
vented  any  clear  appreciation  of  the  inherent  con 
flict  of  interests  between  the  slaveholding  and  the 
non-slaveholding  States.  But  with  the  removal  of 
outside  pressure  came  prompt  recognition  of  the 
internal  issue  raised  by  the  presence  of  slavery;  and 
thereafter,  from  the  moment  of  the  so-called  Missouri 
Compromise  of  1820  to  the  historic  secession  forty 

years  later,  the  drift  into  sectionalism  was  steadily 

78 


SAM  HOUSTON  79 

accentuated.  In  the  intervening  period  three  terri 
torial  acquisitions  of  great  magnitude  were  made, 
each  of  which  was  intimately  connected,  though  in 
different  ways,  with  the  growing  determination  of 
one  section  of  the  country  to  restrict  slavery,  and  of 
the  other  to  extend  it. 

In  the  case  of  Texas,  the  first  of  these  acquisitions, 
sectionalism  operated  both  to  promote  and  to  delay 
what  is  now  universally  accounted  a  most  desirable 
addition  to  the  Union.  The  American  colonization 
of  Texas  would  have  been  less  rapid  had  not  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  with  its  clause  forbidding 
the  creation  of  new  slave  States  in  the  Louisiana 
Purchase  territory  north  of  the  southern  boundary 
of  Missouri,  forced  the  slaveholders  of  the  South  to 
thoughts  of  expansion.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
annexation  of  Texas  would  have  been  accomplished 
far  sooner  had  not  its  championship  by  the  friends 
of  slavery  aroused  the  foes  of  slavery  to  lively  opposi 
tion.  This  is  not  saying  that  its  accomplishment 
must  be  considered  a  triumph  for  sectionalism  over 
nationalism.  Long  before  the  interjection  of  the 
slavery  issue  into  the  annexation  movement,  there 
was  ample  evidence  of  a  national  desire  for  the 
possession  of  Texas.  Repeated  attempts  were  made 
to  secure  it,  first,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  really  a 


8o      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

part,  not  of  Spanish  Mexico,  but  of  French  Louisiana, 
and  hence  that  title  to  it  had  passed  to  the  United 
States  with  the  Louisiana  Purchase;  and  afterwards, 
this  claim  being  relinquished  in  the  Florida  treaty, 
by  offers  from  the  Government  to  purchase  it  from 
Mexico. 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  either,  that  once  Mexico 
departed  from  the  traditional  Spanish  policy  of 
hostility  to  alien  colonization  and  admitted  American 
settlers  within  the  confines  of  Texas,  her  hold  of  that 
province  was  doomed.  She  had  had  warning  enough 
to  avoid  this  suicidal  step.  Ever  since  the  Mississippi 
Valley  folk,  in  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  had  learned  of  the  riches  and  fertility,  the 
splendid  skies  and  noble  streams,  of  the  prairie 
plains  that  stretched  from  the  Sabine  to  the  Rio 
Grande,  there  had  come  into  Texas  a  succession  of 
adventurers  spying  out  the  land  and  striving  to 
snatch  it  from  the  feeble  grasp  of  Spain.  One  and 
all  of  these  adventurers,  from  Philip  Nolan  in  1800 
to  James  Long  in  1819,*  had  failed  in  their  attempts; 
but  only  because  they  had  taken  absurdly  inade- 

*  A  brief  but  excellent  account  of  these  invasions  will  be  found  in 
George  P.  Garrison's  "Texas."  They  are  treated  in  greater  detail  in 
Henderson  Yoakum's  "History  of  Texas  from  its  First  Settlement," 
which  has  been  reprinted  with  helpful  notes  in  Dudley  G.  Wooten's 
"Comprehensive  History  of  Texas."  See  also  Hubert  H.  Bancroft's 
"History  of  the  Pacific  States  of  North  America,"  vol.  XI. 


SAM  HOUSTON  81 

quate  means  to  the  end  in  view.  Any  really  effective 
force  would  have  made  short  work  of  the  Spanish 
troops  scattered  through  the  widely  separated  pre 
sidios.  Nevertheless,  ignorant  or  heedless  of  the 
true  significance  of  these  filibustering  expeditions, 
the  Mexicans,  so  soon  as  they  had  themselves  mas 
tered  their  Spanish  rulers  and  established  an  inde 
pendent,  if  extraordinarily  turbulent,  republic,  threw 
open  the  gates  that  had  so  long  been  shut  and  in 
vited  whomsoever  would  to  enter  and  settle  in  Texas. 
Credit  for  bringing  about  this  change  in  policy 
belongs  in  chief  measure  to  a  Connecticut  Yankee, 
Moses  Austin,  and  his  son  Stephen.  It  was  the 
father  who,  in  the  year  of  the  Florida  treaty,  con 
ceived  the  idea  of  persuading  the  then  moribund 
Spanish  Government  to  grant  him  a  tract  of  land 
for  the  establishment  of  a  colony;  and  it  was  the 
son's  distinction  to  obtain  from  the  Mexican  Govern 
ment  a  confirmation  of  the  Spanish  grant  and  to 
plant  the  first  American  settlement  in  Texas.  There 
is  nothing  to  show  that  either  of  the  Austins  or  their 
colonists  were  inspired  by  the  sinister  motives  some 
would  attribute  to  them.  On  the  contrary,  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  they  were  simply  fron 
tiersmen  desirous  of  bettering  their  condition  and 
persuaded  that  they  would  have  an  excellent  chance 


82      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

to  do  this  in  a  land  that  boasted  more  than  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  square  miles  of  verdant 
farming  country  and  a  white  population  of  only  four 
thousand.  Into  Texas,  therefore,  they  went,  and 
fast  on  their  heels  followed  others,  attracted  by  a 
succession  of  liberal  colonization  laws  which  ex 
empted  settlers  from  all  taxes  and  customs  duties 
for  a  long  term  of  years.  Thus  it  resulted  that 
within  less  than  a  decade  after  the  arrival  of  Austin's 
first  contingent  of  immigrants  the  four  thousand 
whites  had  risen  to  twenty  thousand,  of  whom 
the  vast  majority  were  Americans.  Unquestionably, 
Mexico  might  well  hope  to  attain  her  aim  of  popu 
lating  and  developing  her  unoccupied  territories. 

But  it  was  not  so  certain  that  she  was  pursuing  a 
policy  entirely  to  her  advantage.  In  fact,  she  soon 
began  to  suspect,  though  at  first  dimly,  that  a  mis 
take  had  been  made  in  permitting  the  growth  within 
her  borders  of  a  community  alien  from  her  in  blood, 
institutions,  and  points  of  view.  Complete  realiza 
tion  of  the  danger  to  which  she  had  exposed  herself 
was  forced  upon  her  by  the  obvious  eagerness  of  the 
American  Government  to  add  Texas  to  the  already 
colossal  dominions  of  the  United  States.  At  the 
time  of  the  execution  of  the  Florida  treaty  no  one, 
except  possibly  Henry  Clay  and  Thomas  Hart 


SAM  HOUSTON  83 

Ben  ton,  had  been  more  opposed  than  John  Quincy 
Adams  to  the  concession  accepting  the  Sabine  in 
stead  of  the  Rio  Grande  as  the  southwest  boundary 
of  the  Louisiana  territory;  and  with  the  election  of 
Adams  to  the  Presidency  an  effort  was  at  once  begun 
to  effect  a  more  favorable  readjustment.  Scarcely 
had  Adams  entered  into  office  when  instructions  were 
sent  to  Joel  R.  Poinsett,  the  American  Minister  to 
Mexico,  to  sound  the  Mexican  Government  on  the 
possibility  of  its  ceding  at  least  part  of  Texas  to  the 
United  States;  and  two  years  later,  in  1827,  Poinsett 
was  directed  to  make  a  definite  offer  of  one  million 
for  all  Texas,  a  proposal  which  he  refused  to  make, 
knowing  that  it  would  meet  with  instant  refusal.* 
In  another  two  years,  however,  and  under  most 
significant  circumstances,  the  subject  was  officially 
and  definitely  broached  to  the  Mexican  authorities. 
Andrew  Jackson  was  now  President,  the  man 
who  had  already  compelled  one  territorial  surrender 
to  the  United  States.  At  that  time  he  had  differed 


*  The  authority  for  this  statement  is  Henry  Clay  who,  writing  in 
Niles'  National  Register,  April  17,  1844,  stated  that  Poinsett  "forebore 
even  to  make  an  overture  for  that  purpose.  Upon  his  return  to  the 
United  States  he  informed  me,  at  New  Orleans,  that  his  reason  for  not 
making  it  was  that  he  knew  the  purchase  was  wholly  impracticable, 
and  that  he  was  persuaded  that  if  he  made  the  overture  it  would  have 
no  other  effect  than  to  aggravate  irritations,  already  existing,  upon  mat 
ters  of  difference  between  the  two  countries." 


84      ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

from  Adams  and  Clay  and  Benton  in  the  matter  of 
the  southwest  boundary,  but  since  then  his  views 
had  completely  changed  and  he  yielded  to  none  in 
the  whole-heartedness  of  his  desire  to  secure  Texas. 
It  was  his  profound  conviction,  summed  up  in  a 
private  letter  written  in  after  years,  that  "the  safety 
as  well  as  the  perpetuation  of  our  glorious  Union 
depends  upon  the  retrocession  of  the  whole  of  that 
country,  as  far  as  the  ancient  limits  of  Louisiana,  to 
the  United  States."  *  In  this  conviction  he  acted 
precisely  as  Adams  had  done  before  him,  sending  to 
the  reluctant  Poinsett,  who  was  still  the  unenvied 
representative  of  the  United  States  in  Mexico,  in 
structions  to  make  an  offer  of  purchase,  bidding  as 
high  as  five  million  dollars  if  necessary.f 

The  moment  might  well  have  seemed  propitious. 
Mexico  was  threatened  by  a  Spanish  expedition,  bent 
on  reconquest;  she  was  weakened  by  her  incessant 
revolutions;  and  she  was  sadly  in  need  of  funds. 
Yet,  with  a  promptitude  which  disconcerted  Poinsett, 
though  it  did  not  surprise  him,  she  spurned  the 
offer,  greatly  to  the  wrath  of  the  imperious  Jackson, 
but  equally  to  the  satisfaction  of  not  a  few  of  Jack- 

*  Jackson  to  W.  B.  Lewis,  in  Cyrus  T.  Brady's  "The  True  Andrew 
Jackson,"  p.  284. 

f  Van  Buren  to  Poinsett,  in  "House  Executive  Document  No.  42, 
Twenty-fifth  Congress,  First  Session,"  pp.  10-16. 


SAM  HOUSTON  85 

son's  fellow-countrymen.  For,  in  the  short  space  of 
time  which  had  elapsed  since  Adams  made  his  over 
tures,  sectional  opposition  had  begun  to  crystallize 
with  the  dawning  suspicion  that  the  annexation  of 
Texas  might  weaken,  not  strengthen,  the  Union,  by 
giving  the  people  of  the  slave  States  an  opportunity 
to  evade  the  consequences  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  and  obtain  political  ascendency  in  the 
councils  of  the  nation.  Already  the  voice  of  the 
free  States  could  be  heard  asserting,  in  the  words  of 
the  "New  England  Palladium":  "The  acquisition 
and  settlement  of  Texas,  a  country  of  surprising 
fertility,  embracing  three  hundred  thousand  square 
miles  and  capable  of  supporting  a  population  of 
seven  or  eight  millions,  would  be  highly  advan 
tageous  to  our  trade  and  manufactures.  Those 
advantages  would  remain  to  us  even  in  case  the 
creation  of  the  acquired  territory  into  States  should 
lead  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  But  as  long  as 
the  integrity  of  the  Union  is  considered  as  paramount 
to  any  consideration  of  commercial  advantage,  so 
long  will  the  proposed  purchase  of  Texas  be  opposed 
by  New  England."  * 

*  The  New  England  Palladium,  September  22,  1829.  See  also  an 
editorial  on  the  same  subject  in  the  issue  of  September  29.  This  news 
paper  is  very  useful  for  a  study  of  the  Texas  question  during  these  early 
years,  and  particularly  of  Sam  Houston's  connection  with  the  annexa- 


86      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

This  was  in  1829,  the  year  of  Jackson's  futile 
offer  to  buy;  and  before  the  year  had  sped  the  " Pal 
ladium"  was  congratulating  its  readers  that  the 
possibility  of  annexation  had  become  too  remote  for 
consideration.  But  exactly  at  this  juncture  the 
arrival  at  Washington  of  Sam  Houston,  sometime 
Governor  of  Tennessee  and  all-time  friend  of  Andrew 
Jackson,  brought  upon  the  scene  the  one  man  whom 
destiny  was  holding  in  reserve  to  win  Texas  for  the 
United  States.  Fresh  from  the  wilds  of  Arkansas 
he  came,  in  January,  1830,  clad  in  picturesque 
Indian  garb,  hopeful  of  enlisting  Jackson's  influence 
in  securing  a  government  contract,  and,  though 
perhaps  less  hopefully,  eager  to  set  on  foot  a  most 
ambitious  project  for  gaining  possession  of  the 
region  Mexico  had  bluntly  refused  to  sell.  "I 

tion  movement  in  its  initial  stages.  The  files  of  the  Palladium  for  1829 
and  1830  show  that  there  was  a  wide-spread  impression  that  Houston 
was  even  then  actively  filibustering  to  win  Texas  for  the  United  States. 
Thus,  in  the  issue  of  October  20,  1829,  we  read  —  "  The  Political  Grid 
iron,  a  Louisiana  paper,  wishes  to  embroil  the  Texas.  The  United 
States,  it  says,  should  take  possession  of  Texas  without  delay,  and  if 
General  Houston  has  gone  to  that  country,  as  is  asserted,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  revolutionizing  it,  we  may  expect  to  hear  shortly  of  his  raising 
his  flag."  In  the  issue  of  November  17,  1829,  the  Palladium  reports 
that  "the  Legislature  of  Arkansas  is  in  session.  Governor  Pope  hopes 
and  expects  the  purchase  of  the  Texas.  He  says  nothing  will  be 
wanting,  on  the  part  of  the  President,  to  add  to  the  strength,  security, 
and  prosperity  of  the  western  country."  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  add 
that  Pope  was  an  appointee  of  Jackson's,  having  been  named  Governor 
of  Arkansas  March  9,  1829,  or  only  five  days  after  Jackson's  inaugura 
tion  as  President. 


SAM  HOUSTON  87 

learned  from  him,"  recorded  Dr.  Robert  Mayo, 
with  whom  Houston  lived  at  the  celebrated  "  Brown's 
Hotel"  in  Washington,  "that  he  was  organizing  an 
expedition  against  Texas;  to  afford  a  cloak  to  which 
he  had  assumed  the  Indian  costume,  habits,  and 
associations, by  settling  among  them  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Texas.  That  nothing  was  more  easy  to 
accomplish  than  the  conquest  and  possession  of  that 
extensive  and  fertile  country,  by  the  co-operation  of 
the  Indians  in  the  Arkansas  Territory,  and  recruits 
among  the  citizens  of  the  United  States.  And  that 
in  his  view  it  would  hardly  be  necessary  to  strike  a 
blow  to  wrest  Texas  from  Mexico."  * 

Now,  while  Mayo  is  not  altogether  a  credible 
witness,  and  while  there  is  cause  for  suspecting  that 
in  the  detailed  account  of  the  "conspiracy"  which 
he  hastened  to  lay  before  President  Jackson  he 
drew  somewhat  on  the  resources  of  an  exuberant 
imagination,  there  is  no  doubting,  in  the  light  of 
subsequent  events,  that  he  told  the  truth  so  far  as 
concerned  Houston's  personal  intentions,  and  that 
Jackson  himself  was  cognizant  of,  and  secretly  con 
nived  at,  his  old  friend's  schemes  against  the  peace 
of  Mexico.  In  Jackson's  case,  we  must  believe,  the 

*  Robert  Mayo,  in  Parton's  "Life  of  Andrew  Jackson,"  vol.  Ill, 
p.  654. 


88      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

motive  was  purely  patriotic.  In  Houston's,  how 
ever,  another  consideration  entered  —  the  desire  for 
self-vindication.  His  had  been  a  strangely  romantic 
and  pathetic  career.  He  was  born,  in  1793,  of 
humble  parentage,  like  Jackson  himself;  his  birth 
place  being  a  farmhouse  in  an  outlying  Virginia 
settlement.  On  both  his  father's  and  his  mother's 
side  he  was  of  the  so-called  Scotch-Irish  stock - 
tracing  his  ancestry,  that  is  to  say,  to  Scotland  via 
Ireland  —  and  thus  he  inherited  a  double  share  of 
the  Scotch-Irish  compound  of  assertiveness,  pug 
nacity,  obstinacy,  independence,  endurance,  and 
reckless  daring.  For  the  better  part  of  his  boyhood 
he  led  a  life  of  restless  roaming  that  might  have 
made  of  him  a  second  Boone;  but  his  father's  death, 
and  the  removal  of  his  mother  to  a  new  home  in  the 
heart  of  the  Tennessee  wilderness,  brought  him  a 
greatly  needed  corrective  in  the  way  of  hard  work. 
At  infrequent  intervals  he  attended  school,  and  one 
day,  the  story  goes,  there  fell  into  his  hands  a  copy 
of  Pope's  " Iliad,"  which  so  fired  his  youthful  imag 
ination  that  when  the  attempt  was  made  to  appren 
tice  him  to  a  trade  he  ran  away  and  took  refuge  with 
some  friendly  Cherokees,  whose  chieftain  adopted 
him.  Here  he  remained,  with  only  occasional  visits 
to  his  mother,  until  the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  1812; 


SAM  HOUSTON* 

From  a  portrait  painted  by  F.  B.  Carpenter  in  1855,  and  now  owned  by  Mr.  Clarence  W. 

Bowen,  New  York. 


SAM  HOUSTON  89 

and  then,  chancing  to  meet  a  recruiting  sergeant,  he 
gladly  donned  a  United  States  army  uniform,  and 
went  in  quest  of  adventures  and  glory. 

Both  he  found  speedily,  his  most  notable  achieve 
ment  being  at  the  battle  of  Horseshoe  Bend,  where 
Jackson  crushed  forever  the  power  of  the  Creeks 
and  took  a  fearful  vengeance  for  the  massacre  at 
Fort  Minis.  Sorely  wounded,  and  ordered  by  Jack 
son  himself  to  withdraw  to  the  rear,  young  Houston, 
determined  to  win  fame  or  death,  deliberately  dis 
obeyed  the  order,  fighting  until  he  fell  with  two 
bullets  in  him.  C.  Edwards  Lester,  his  best  known 
biographer,  who  wrote  under  Houston's  personal 
supervision,  has  drawn  a  graphic  picture  of  the  part 
he  played  in  this  famous  battle.  The  regiment  to 
which  he  was  attached  had  been  ordered  to  storm 
the  breastworks  erected  by  the  Creeks.  Houston, 
by  this  time  an  ensign,  plunged  forward  with  his 
company.  "While  he  was  scaling  the  works,  or 
soon  after  he  reached  the  ground,  a  barbed  arrow 
struck  deep  into  his  thigh.  He  kept  his  ground  for 
a  moment  till  his  lieutenant  and  men  were  by  his 
side,  and  the  warriors  had  begun  to  recoil  under  their 
desperate  onset.  He  then  called  to  his  lieutenant 
to  extract  the  arrow,  after  he  had  tried  in  vain  to  do 
it  himself.  The  officer  made  two  unsuccessful 


90      ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

attempts  and  failed.  'Try  again,'  said  Houston, 
the  sword  with  which  he  was  still  keeping  the  com 
mand  raised  over  his  head,  'and  if  you  fail  this  time 
I  will  smite  you  to  the  earth/  With  a  desperate 
effort  he  drew  forth  the  arrow,  tearing  the  flesh  as  it 
came.  A  stream  of  blood  rushed  from  the  place, 
and  Houston  crossed  the  breastworks  to  have  his 
wound  dressed. 

"The  surgeon  bound  it  up  and  stanched  the 
blood,  and  General  Jackson,  who  came  up  to  see 
who  had  been  wounded,  recognizing  his  young 
ensign,  ordered  him  firmly  not  to  return.  Under 
any  other  circumstances  Houston  would  have  obeyed 
any  order  from  the  brave  man  who  stood  over  him, 
but  now  he  begged  the  general  to  allow  him  to  return 
to  his  men.  General  Jackson  ordered  him  most 
peremptorily  not  to  cross  the  breastworks  again. 
But  Houston  was  determined  to  die  in  that  battle 
or  win  the  fame  of  a  hero.  .  .  .  Rushing  once  more 
to  the  breastworks,  he  was  in  a  few  seconds  at  the 
head  of  his  men. 

"The  action  had  now  become  general,  and  more 
than  two  thousand  men  were  struggling  hand  to 
hand.  Arrows  and  spears  and  balls  were  flying, 
swords  and  tomahawks  were  gleaming  in  the  sun, 
and  the  whole  peninsula  rang  with  the  yell  of  the 


SAM  HOUSTON  91 

savage  and  the  groans  of  the  dying.  .  .  .  Not  a 
warrior  offered  to  surrender,  even  while  the  sword 
was  at  his  breast.  Hundreds  had  already  fallen, 
and  were  weltering  in  their  gore  —  multitudes  of 
others  had  been  shot  or  drowned  in  attempting  to 
swim  the  river.  .  .  .  But  the  victory  was  still  incom 
plete  —  the  work  of  slaughter  was  not  yet  done.  A 
large  party  of  Indians  had  secreted  themselves  in  a 
part  of  the  breastworks,  constructed  over  a  ravine 
in  the  form  of  the  roof  of  a  house,  with  narrow  port 
holes  from  which  a  murderous  fire  could  be  kept  up 
whenever  the  assailants  should  show  themselves. 
Here  the  last  remnant  of  the  Creek  warriors  of  the 
peninsula  were  gathered,  and  as  the  artillery  could 
not  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  place,  they  could 
be  dislodged  only  by  a  bold  charge,  which  would 
probably  cost  the  life  of  the  brave  men  who  made  it. 
"An  offer  of  life  if  they  would  surrender  had  been 
rejected  with  scorn  by  these  brave,  desperate  sav 
ages,  which  sealed  their  fate.  General  Jackson  now 
called  for  a  body  of  men  to  make  the  charge.  As 
there  was  no  order  given,  the  line  stood  still,  and  not 
an  officer  volunteered  to  lead  the  forlorn  hope. 
Supposing  some  captain  would  lead  forward  his 
company,  Houston  would  wait  no  longer.  Calling 
on  his  platoon  to  follow  him,  he  dashed  down  the 


92      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

precipitous  descent  towards  the  covered  ravine. 
But  his  men  hesitated.  With  a  desperation  which 
belongs  only  to  such  occasions,  he  seized  a  musket 
from  one  of  his  men,  and,  leading  the  way,  ordered 
the  rest  to  follow  him.  There  was  but  one  way  of 
attack  that  could  prevail  —  it  was  to  charge  through 
the  port-holes,  although  they  were  bristling  with 
rifles  and  arrows,  and  it  had  to  be  done  by  a  rapid, 
simultaneous  plunge.  As  he  was  stopping  to  rally 
his  men,  and  had  leveled  his  musket,  within  five 
yards  of  the  port-holes,  he  received  two  rifle-balls  in 
his  right  shoulder,  and  his  arm  fell  shattered  to  his 
side.  Totally  disabled,  he  turned  and  called  once 
more  to  his  men,  and  implored  them  to  make  the 
charge.  But  they  could  not  advance.  Houston 
stood  in  his  blood  till  he  saw  it  would  do  no  good  to 
stand  any  longer,  and  then  went  beyond  the  range 
of  the  bullets,  and  sank  down  exhausted  to  the 
earth."  * 

For  months  his  recovery  was  uncertain,  but  when 
he  was  able  to  be  up  and  about  he  quickly  discovered 
in  Jackson,  who  had  readily  forgiven  his  disobe 
dience  but  had  not  forgotten  his  heroism,  a  friend 
eager  to  assist  in  the  advancement  of  his  interests. 

*C.  Edwards  Lester's  "Sam  Houston  and  His  Republic."  Edition 
of  1846,  pp.  20-22. 


SAM  HOUSTON  93 

Resigning  from  the  army  and  embracing  the  prac 
tise  of  law,  with  the  powerful  influence  of  Jackson 
constantly  behind  him,  he  gained  immediate  recog 
nition  as  one  of  the  coming  men  of  Tennessee.  He 
had  been  barely  twenty-one  years  old,  an  utterly 
unknown  frontier  lad,  at  the  battle  of  the  Horseshoe ; 
before  he  reached  the  age  of  thirty-one  he  was  elected 
Major- General  of  the  State  militia  and  member  of 
the  National  House  of  Representatives;  and  he  was 
not  yet  thirty-five  when  a  tidal  wave  of  popular 
enthusiasm  carried  him  into  the  Governorship  of 
Tennessee,  even  against  the  candidacy  of  the  famous 
war  Governor,  William  Blount. 

But  now,  on  the  very  eve,  as  it  seemed,  of  still 
greater  honors,  the  entire  current  of  his  life  was 
changed  by  a  domestic  affliction.  Deserted  by  his 
wife,  accused  by  the  tongue  of  scandal,  and  hounded 
by  enemies,  he  took  the  amazing  step  of  resigning 
from  office,  abandoning  civilization,  and  seeking  an 
asylum  among  the  Cherokees  to  whom  he  had  fled 
in  boyhood.  There,  for  a  time,  heedless  of  the  out 
side  world,  he  gave  himself  over  to  hunting  and  to 
drowning  his  sorrows  in  libations  that  quickly 
earned  for  him  among  his  tawny  companions  the 
nickname  of  "  Drunken  Sam."  But  this  lasted  for 
only  a  time.  Ere  the  year  was  out  he  was  on  his 


94      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

way  to  Washington,  to  visit  the  friend  who  had 
never  failed  him,  and  to  find  if  possible  a  means  of 
proving  to  friend  and  foe  alike  that  the  career  which 
had  promised  so  well  was  not  completely  blasted. 

It  was  nearly  three  years  later,  however,  before 
Houston  actually  set  foot  on  the  soil  of  Texas;  the 
delay  being  due,  in  part  at  any  rate,  to  his  persistence 
in  seeking  the  contract  which,  despite  all  of  Jack 
son's  influence,  was  steadily  denied  him.  In  the 
meantime,  while  he  was  alternating  between  Wash 
ington  and  his  wigwam  home  in  Arkansas,  the 
shadow  of  his  former  self,  without  reputation,  without 
means,  and  without  friends  other  than  the  few  who, 
like  Jackson,  saw  in  him  only  the  hero  of  Horseshoe 
Bend,  the  situation  in  Texas  was  steadily  growing 
more  favorable  to  his  undertaking.  Jackson's  offer 
had  thoroughly  aroused  the  Mexicans  to  the  necessity 
of  checking  the  inflow  of  American  colonization,  and 
with  unwonted  unanimity  they  resolved  on  action  to 
vindicate  and  maintain  their  authority  in  their 
northern  province.  Their  first  move  was  the  issu 
ance  of  a  decree  abolishing  slavery  in  Mexico. 
Though  couched  in  general  terms,  the  decree  prac 
tically  affected  Texas  alone,  and  was  intended  to 
discourage  further  immigration  from  the  Southern 
States,  whence  most  of  the  colonists  had  come.  It 


SAM  HOUSTON  95 

was  soon,  however,  rescinded  to  all  intents  and 
purposes;*  but  following  it,  early  in  1830,  the 
Mexican  Congress  enacted  a  sweeping  law  pro 
viding  for  the  establishment  of  Mexican  colonies, 
military  posts,  and  customs  offices  in  the  border 
provinces;  prohibiting  further  colonization  by  immi 
grants  from  adjacent  countries;  and  forbidding  the 
importation  of  slaves.  It  has  been  well  said  that 
from  the  passage  of  this  law  can  be  traced  the  growth 
of  discontent  in  Texas.  It  was  aimed  only  at  the 
Texans,  or  rather  at  the  now  dreaded  Americaniza 
tion  of  Texas,  and  no  time  was  lost  in  giving  it  effect. 
Troops  were  hurried  to  the  American  settlements, 
guards  stationed  along  the  frontier  to  keep  out 
slaves  and  turn  back  prospective  immigrants,  cus 
toms  collections  were  begun,  and  all  but  two  of  the 
Texas  ports  were  closed. 

To  the  Texans,  hitherto  in  the  enjoyment  of  a 
degree  of  liberty  amounting  almost  to  license,  these 
measures  were  galling  in  the  extreme,  and  a  spirit 
of  uneasiness  and  resentment  rapidly  took  posses 
sion  of  them.  But,  with  admirable  restraint,  they 
held  themselves  well  in  hand  until  some  of  their 
leading  men  were  imprisoned  on  trivial  charges. 
Then,  pretending  that  they  wished  to  aid  Santa 

*See  Garrison's  "Texas,"  pp.  172-73. 


96      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Anna,  the  leader  of  the  latest  Mexican  revolution, 
they  rose  in  arms  and  attacked  the  recently  estab 
lished  garrisons,  disbanding  only  after  the  last 
Mexican  soldier  had  fled  across  the  border.  It  was 
at  this  moment,  when  all  was  confusion,  uncertainty, 
and  indignation,  that  Houston  arrived  in  Texas. 
The  purpose  of  his  coming  seems  to  have  been  well 
understood,  for  at  the  frontier  town  of  Nacogdoches 
he  received  a  warm  welcome  and  an  urgent  invita 
tion  to  settle  there.  He  learned  that  a  convention 
was  soon  to  meet  for  a  discussion  of  the  situation, 
and  further  information  prompted  him  to  despatch 
to  Jackson  an  enthusiastic  letter  declaring  that  then, 
if  ever,  was  the  time  to  acquire  Texas,  and  that 
nineteen  twentieths  of  the  population  of  the  province 
were  eager  for  annexation  to  the  United  States.*  In 
this  he  greatly  erred,  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
Texans  as  yet  had  no  intention  of  making  a  definite, 
clear-cut  stand  for  separation  from  Mexico.  That 

*  Houston  added  —  "Now  is  a  very  important  crisis  for  Texas.  As 
relates  to  her  future  prosperity  and  safety,  as  well  as  the  relations  which 
it  [sic]  is  to  bear  to  the  United  States,  it  is  now  in  the  most  favorable 
attitude,  perhaps,  that  it  can  be  to  obtain  it  on  fair  terms.  England  is 
pressing  her  suit  for  it,  but  its  citizens  will  resist  if  any  transfer  should 
be  made  of  them  to  any  Power  but  the  United  States.  I  have  traveled 
nearly  five  hundred  miles  across  Texas,  and  am  now  enabled  to  judge 
pretty  correctly  of  the  soil  and  resources  of  the  country,  and  I  have  no 
hesitancy  in  pronouncing  it  the  finest  country,  for  its  extent,  upon  the 
globe.  ...  It  is  probable  that  I  may  make  Texas  my  abiding  place. 


SAM  HOUSTON  97 

they  would  ultimately  do  so  was  beyond  question, 
in  view  of  the  irreconcilable  contradiction  between 
the  instinctive  love  of  freedom  which  was  part  of 
their  Anglo-Saxon  heritage  and  the  innate  despotism 
of  their  Mexican  rulers.  But  their  immediate  desire 
was  to  effect  a  restoration  of  the  conditions  existing 
prior  to  the  enforcement  of  the  Act  of  1830. 

Meeting  in  convention  in  April,  1833,  they  drew 
up  a  petition  for  the  repeal  of  its  most  obnoxious 
clauses  and  for  permission  to  adopt  a  State  consti 
tution,  which,  it  is  significant  to  note,  was  drafted 
by  a  committee  headed  by  Houston,  and  was  thor 
oughly  republican  in  form  and  spirit.  Then  ensued 
an  anxious  period.  For  six  months  their  commis 
sioner —  none  other  than  the  " Father  of  Texas" 
himself,  Stephen  F.  Austin  —  labored  in  vain  to 
obtain  a  hearing;  after  which,  when  about  to  leave 
Mexico  City  with  his  mission  unfulfilled,  he  was 
thrown  into  prison,  where  he  lingered  many  weary 
months.  This  treatment,  of  course,  enraged  the 
Texans,  and  the  revolutionary  spirit  steadily  grew 
apace  under  the  zealous  fostering  of  Houston  and 
minor  agitators  who  were  determined  to  force  a 
separation.  None  the  less,  the  evidence  goes  to 

In  adopting  this  course  I  will  never  forget  the  country  of  my  birth." 
This  letter,  dated  from  Natchitoches,  February  17,  1833,  is  printed  in 
whole  in  Henry  G.  Bruce's  "The  Life  of  General  Houston,"  pp.  81-83. 


98      ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

show  that  the  " peace  party/'  of  which  Austin  was 
the  most  influential  member,  remained  in  the  ascend 
ant  until  as  late  as  August,  1835.  Then  a  crisis 
was  precipitated  by  the  news  that  the  Mexican 
Government  —  now  concentrated  in  the  single  per 
son  of  Santa  Anna  —  was  planning  to  send  a  large 
army  into  Texas  to  break  up  the  foreign  settlements. 
With  this  the  issue  was  squarely  presented  —  war, 
or  unconditional  surrender  —  and  from  that  time 
forward  even  the  peace-loving  Austin  united  his 
voice  with  Houston's  in  exhorting  the  Texans  to 
resist  to  the  death. 

The  story  of  the  war  that  followed  need  not  be 
told  in  detail.  Despite  the  assistance  received  from 
the  United  States,  in  flagrant  violation  of  the  laws 
of  neutrality,  but  in  perfect  accord  with  the  laws  of 
racial  solidarity  and  blood  relationship,  it  opened 
inauspiciously  for  the  revolutionary  cause.  Fast  on 
the  heels  of  the  ghastly  Alamo  massacre,  when 
Travis,  Bowie,  Crockett,  and  their  gallant  comrades 
were  butchered  in  cold  blood  by  Santa  Anna,  came 
the  similar  horror  at  Goliad,  with  its  death-roll  of 
nearly  four  hundred.  These  merciless  and  unfor 
givable  acts  were  doubtless  designed  to  strike  terror 
to  the  hearts  of  the  revolutionists;  but  they  only 
inspired  a  blind,  unreasoning  fury,  and  an  unshak- 


STEPHEN  AUSTIN* 

"The  Father  of  Texas" 

From  a  portrait  in  the  possession  of  the  Texas  Historical  Society. 


v_,r     THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


SAM  HOUSTON  99 

able  resolution  to  exact  a  bloody  recompense.  Such 
was  the  wrath  of  the  Texans  that  they  even  turned 
against  Houston,  their  military  head,  who,  with  a 
masterly  generalship  which  they  could  not  appre 
ciate,  was  employing  Fabian  tactics  to  avoid  a  battle 
until  reinforcements  should  reach  him.  Not  the 
least  of  his  triumphs  was  the  success  with  which, 
heedless  of  taunts  and  protests,  he  beat  down  all 
opposition  and  compelled  his  rebellious  followers  to 
do  his  bidding.  In  the  end  the  necessity  of  giving 
battle  came  sooner  than  he  desired,  but  with  it  came 
also  the  vindication  for  which  he  had  long  been 
toiling,  and  the  independence  of  Texas.  April  21, 
1836,  near  the  San  Jacinto  River,  was  fought  the 
decisive  engagement  of  the  war,  when  Houston  and 
some  eight  hundred  Texans  overwhelmingly  defeated 
twice  their  number  of  Mexicans  and  captured  Santa 
Anna  himself. 

In  gratitude  for  that  victory,  Houston  —  no  longer 
the  despised  " Drunken  Sam,"  but  universally  ac 
claimed,  and  deservedly,  as  a  man  of  transcendent 
abilities  —  was  elected  President  of  the  Republic, 
which  his  valor,  no  less  than  his  intriguing,  had  con 
tributed  to  bring  into  existence.  And  now,  having 
at  the  time  of  his  election  declared  almost  unani 
mously  in  favor  of  annexation  with  the  United  States, 


ioo    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  Texans  confidently  looked  forward  to  an  early 
admission  into  the  greater  republic  of  their  native 
land.  But  in  this  they  were  doomed  to  bitter  dis 
appointment.  The  changed  attitude  of  an  influen 
tial  section  of  the  American  people  —  indicated  so 
long  before  as  1829  in  the  opposition  aroused  by 
Jackson's  attempt  to  purchase  Texas  —  had  by  this 
time  solidified  into  a  wide-spread  and  resolute  hos 
tility  to  the  annexation  movement.  It  was  recognized 
that,  if  admitted  at  all,  Texas  would  have  to  be 
admitted  as  a  slave  State,  or  States  —  rumor  had  it 
that  she  was  to  be  carved  into  five  or  six  States  in 
the  political  interests  of  the  slaveholding  South  — 
for  she  lay  in  the  slave  belt  and  had  by  constitutional 
provision  established  slavery  as  one  of  her  institu 
tions;  and  the  increasingly  numerous  opponents  of 
the  slavery  system  had  no  intention  of  permitting  it 
to  intrench  itself  more  firmly  than  ever  in  the  United 
States.  Moreover,  there  were  many,  like  Adams 
and  Benton,  who,  though  expansionists  of  the  first 
order,  regarded  the  proposed  measure  as  a  spoliation 
of  Mexico,  and  were  accordingly  opposed  to  it.  So 
complicated  was  the  situation,  and  so  manifest  had 
the  drift  into  sectionalism  become,  that  even  the 
Texas-desiring  Jackson  shrank  from  a  step  which 
would  certainly  disrupt  party  lines  and  might 


SAM  HOUSTON  101 

endanger  the  Union  for  whose  "safety  and  per 
petuation,"  paradoxically  enough,  he  deemed  the 
possession  of  Texas  essential.  As  a  result,  the  Texan 
commissioners,  who,  soon  after  the  battle  of  San 
Jacinto,  hurried  to  Washington  to  proffer  annexa 
tion,  met  with  a  decided  rebuff,  as  did  the  Texan 
Minister  on  renewing  the  offer  in  the  following  year, 
after  the  Government  of  the  United  States  had  recog 
nized  the  independence  of  his  country. 

Time  passed.  Jackson's  term  of  office  expired; 
his  nominee,  the  adroit  Van  Buren,  reaped  the  sad 
harvest  of  a  panic  year  and  gave  way  to  the  ill-fated 
Harrison;  and  still  the  annexation  of  Texas  seemed 
as  far  off  as  ever.  It  was,  however,  steadily  becom 
ing  a  livelier  subject  of  public  discussion.  Several 
State  legislatures  adopted  resolutions  declaring  for 
or  against  it,  according  as  the  State  was  slaveholding 
or  non-slaveholding;  and  attempts  were  made  to 
secure  action  by  Congress,  a  vote  on  one  occasion 
being  prevented  only  by  the  filibustering  of  Adams, 
who  occupied  three  weeks  in  the  delivery  of  a  single 
speech.  This  was  in  1838,  and  it  was  not  until 
1843  th^  the  friends  of  annexation  really  had  reason 
to  hope  for  success.  Then  the  outlook  perceptibly 
brightened,  in  part  owing  to  the  political  ambitions 
of  President  Tyler,  but  still  more  as  a  result  of  the 


102    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

artful  diplomacy  of  President  Houston,  who  had 
already  proved  himself  as  capable  in  statecraft  as  in 
military  leadership. 

In  December,  1841,  after  his  election  for  a  second 
term,  he  had  again  sounded  the  authorities  at  Wash 
ington  with  regard  to  the  prospects  for  annexation, 
and  upon  receiving  an  unfavorable  reply  he  adopted 
a  well-assumed  attitude  of  indifference  and  began 
to  cultivate  close  relations  with  foreign  Powers, 
notably  Great  Britain.  Presently  most  disquieting 
reports  reached  the  United  States.  It  was  said, 
among  much  else,  that  the  British  Government  pur 
posed  using  its  influence  in  Texas  to  bring  about 
the  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  in  all  America, 
and  thus  protect  the  sugar  and  cotton  industries 
of  the  East  and  West  Indies  from  the  competition  of 
the  United  States.  Improbable  though  it  was,  this 
story  received  wide  credence,  and  action  by  the 
already  willing  Tyler,  anxious  at  any  cost  to  curry 
favor  with  the  Democratic  party,  was  hastened  by 
the  receipt  of  a  notification  from  Houston  that  "the 
subject  of  annexation  is  no  longer  open  to  discus 
sion."  Promptly,  but  with  great  secrecy,  negotia 
tions  were  begun  between  the  two  Governments, 
and  before  long,  to  Houston's  infinite  satisfaction, 
a  treaty  of  annexation  was  successfully  formulated, 


SAM  HOUSTON  103 

notwithstanding  the  angry  protests  of  Mexico,  which 
still  cherished  the  vain  hope  of  reconquering  Texas. 
But  formulation  was  one  thing,  ratification 
another.  Brought  to  a  vote  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  June  8,  1844,  after  annexation  had  been 
elevated  to  the  dignity  of  a  party  issue,  the  treaty 
was  decisively  rejected  by  a  vote  of  sixteen  in  favor 
of,  and  thirty-five  opposed  to,  ratification.  Never 
theless,  Houston  did  not  despair.  The  American 
people  had  yet  to  register  their  verdict,  for  one  result 
of  his  diplomacy  and  of  the  "British  intervention " 
stories  had  been  to  place  the  question  of  annexation 
among  the  vital  questions  of  the  rapidly  approaching 
Presidential  election,  and  he  was  confident  that 
dread  of  foreign  influence,  coupled  with  the  instinct 
ive  desire  for  expansion,  would  outweigh  all  other 
considerations  in  the  minds  of  the  majority.  Here 
he  was  right,  the  comparatively  unknown  James  K. 
Polk,  on  a  platform  declaring  unreservedly  for  an 
nexation,  defeating  the  popular  idol,  Henry  Clay. 
For  Houston,  as  for  Jackson  watching  the  contest 
from  his  well-earned  retirement  in  Tennessee,  Polk's 
election  was  a  personal  triumph,  a  personal  vindica 
tion,  setting  the  seal  of  popular  approval  on  the 
labors  and  policies  of  nearly  two  decades  gone. 
Only  a  few  months  more  and,  though  not  by  treaty 


104    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

but  by  the  novel  method  of  a  joint  resolution  of 
Congress,  the  Lone  Star  Republic  was  transformed 
into  the  American  State  of  Texas. 

This,  properly  speaking,  is  the  point  at  which  to 
bring  our  narrative  to  a  close.  Of  the  war  with 
Mexico  that  followed  we  shall  hear  enough  in  the 
course  of  our  study  of  the  conquest  of  California. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  temptation  to  recall, 
however  briefly,  the  splendid  sequel  to  Houston's 
career  as  an  expansionist.  The  eve  of  the  Civil 
War  found  him  Governor  of  Texas,  after  long  and 
faithful  service  in  the  United  States  Senate;  and 
found  him,  for  well-nigh  the  first  time,  out  of  sym 
pathy  with  the  desires  of  his  fellow-Texans.  They 
were  for  secession  —  he  was  for  the  Union.  Old 
in  years,  but  fiery  as  ever,  with  the  boldness,  the 
bluntness,  the  patriotism,  that  had  always  marked 
his  ways,  he  set  himself  manfully  to  conquer  the 
popular  will  and  hold  Texas  true  to  the  cause  which 
he  deemed  the  greatest  and  best  in  the  world.  Fail 
ing,  and  with  horror  and  anguish  hearing  his  State 
declare  in  favor  of  the  Confederacy,  he  made  ready 
for  a  final  struggle.  He  was  Governor  and  he 
would  stay  Governor,  owning  allegiance  to  Texas 
but  also  to  the  Union.  In  vain  his  friends  urged 
him  either  to  swear  fealty  to  the  Confederacy  or 


SAM  HOUSTON  105 

resign.  He  would  do  neither.  And  thus  it  came 
about  that,  after  all  his  labors  for  Texas,  he  was 
deposed  and  expelled  from  office.  Whereupon,  in  the 
words  of  one  who  knew  him  well,  "he  retired  to 
his  prairie  home,  and,  planting  upon  his  log  cabin 
a  single  four-pounder,  he  told  his  State  'to  go  to 
ruin  if  she  pleased,  but  she  should  not  drag  him 
along  with  her.'  He  had  made  and  saved  her,  and 
if  she  would  be  unmade,  it  should  be  her  work  - 
not  his."  The  pity  that  the  weary  giant  did  not  live 
to  learn  that  Texas  had  not  been  unmade!  He  died 
July  26,  1863,  three  weeks  after  Grant  had  captured 
Vicksburg. 


CHAPTER  V 

THOMAS  HART  BENTON  AND  THE  OCCUPATION  OF 
OREGON 

THE  annexation  of  Texas  by  joint  resolution  of 
Congress  was  formally  completed  on  the  first  day 
of  March,  1845.  Out  of  the  hostilities  with  Mexico 
that  followed,  the  United  States  gained  another 
large  territorial  increase,  at  one  bound  crossing  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  spanning  the  enormous  area 
between  the  Rockies  and  the  Pacific.  But  the 
Mexican  War  did  not  give  the  United  States  her  first 
foothold  on  the  Pacific.  That  came  with  the  estab 
lishment  of  the  American  title  to  Oregon  in  1846, 
and  was  secured,  not  by  a  bloody  conquest,  but  by 
the  peaceful  methods  of  diplomacy. 

For  a  time,  indeed,  the  settlement  of  the  so-called 
Oregon  Question  —  carrying  with  it  ownership  of 
the  immense  tract  of  territory  stretching  along  the 
Pacific  from  California  to  Alaska,  then  Russian 
America  —  seemed  impossible  without  resort  to 
arms.  Yet,  singularly  enough,  until  that  time  the 
great  danger  was  that  the  United  States  would, 

106 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  107 

through  sheer  negligence,  lose  what  undoubtedly 
belonged  to  her.  The  problem  was  very  different 
from  that  presented  by  Louisiana,  Florida,  Texas, 
and  the  later  acquisitions  still  to  be  discussed.  It 
was  not  a  case  of  obtaining  territory  by  purchase  or 
force  of  arms,  but  one  of  vindicating  title  to  a  region 
also  claimed  by  another  nation.  Originally,  in  fact, 
and  before  the  United  States  became  a  party  to 
the  dispute,  no  fewer  than  four  Powers  were  rival 
claimants  to  the  Oregon  country  —  Spain,  France, 
Russia,  and  Great  Britain.  Of  these  the  first  and 
last  alone  had  any  substantial  foundation  for  their 
claims,  and  this  as  regarded  only  isolated  sections 
of  the  territory ;  but  until  1 790,  when  there  was  forced 
upon  her  the  humiliating  Nootka  Sound  convention 
conceding  equal  rights  to  Great  Britain,  Spain 
asserted  sovereignty  over  the  whole  of  Oregon. 
Two  years  later,  with  Robert  Gray's  discovery  of  the 
Columbia  River  and  valley,  the  United  States  be 
came  an  added  claimant,  strengthening  her  case  in 
1803  by  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Treaty,  whereby 
she  secured  whatever  rights  France  had,  or  fancied 
she  had,  in  the  country  beyond  the  mountains;  in 
1805  by  the  explorations  of  the  Lewis  and  Clark 
expedition;  in  1811  by  the  founding  of  the  trading- 
post  of  Astoria  at  the  mouth  of  the  Oregon;  and  in 


io8    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

1819  by  the  Florida  Treaty,  a  clause  of  which,  as 
was  pointed  out  in  a  preceding  chapter,  transferred 
Spain's  Oregon  claims  to  the  United  States. 

Nothing  in  all  this  gave  the  United  States  a  right 
to  claim  the  entire  Oregon  country  —  Spain's  pre 
tensions  having  really  been  blotted  out  long  before 
the  Florida  Treaty  by  her  abandonment  of  the 
region  after  the  Nootka  Sound  convention  of  1790 
-  but  what  it  did  give  was  a  better  title  than  any 
other  nation  could  show  to  that  part  of  Oregon 
comprising  the  rich  valley  of  the  Columbia  and  lying 
between  the  forty-second  and  forty-ninth  parallels 
of  latitude.  This  it  was  that  the  United  States  all 
but  lost  by  reason  of  the  indifference  of  the  Ameri 
can  Government  and  people.  That  both  Govern 
ment  and  people  should  have  been  indifferent  is, 
however,  not  at  all  surprising.  Oregon  was  a  re 
mote,  inaccessible,  unknown  country,  popularly 
supposed  to  be  shut  off  from  the  United  States  by 
a  vast  plain  of  sun-parched  desert  and  an  impassable 
mountain  barrier.  So  little  was  known  of  its  re 
sources  and  possibilities  that  it  was  accounted 
absolutely  worthless  for  agriculture,  and  of  value 
only  for  the  fur  trade.*  In  the  minds  of  many 

*  The  accuracy  of  this  statement  has  been  challenged  by  T.  C.  Elli 
ott  of  Walla  Walla,  Washington,  writing  in  The  Outlook,  vol.  LXXXIX, 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  109 

there  was  the  suspicion,  too,  that  the  occupation 
and  development  of  Oregon  would  work  against  the 
best  interests  of  the  Union,  leading  to  a  separation 
between  the  Americans  on  the  east  and  the  Ameri 
cans  on  the  west  of  the  mountains.  And,  as  the 
diplomatic  struggle  neared  its  close,  an  insidious 
and  powerful  opposition  developed  from  the  slave- 
holding  Southern  States,  whose  leaders  feared  that 
the  provisions  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  would 
be  applied  to  Oregon,  and  additional  free  States  be 
created  from  it. 

Another  and  perhaps  the  greatest  reason  for  the 
apathy  which  so  long  prevailed  was  the  fact  that 
the  people  did  not  feel  any  immediate  need  for 
Oregon.  The  economic  pressure  which  had  com 
pelled  the  first  transmontane  migration  had  not  as 
yet  made  the  second  inevitable.  On  the  contrary, 

p.  869.  But  there  is  ample  evidence  to  show  that  even  the  best  informed 
Americans  of  the  day  knew  remarkably  little  about  Oregon.  As  late 
as  1845,  to  give  a  striking  piece  of  testimony,  we  find  the  historian  Ban 
croft,  then  about  to  take  office  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  writing  — 
"After  dinner  I  left  a  card  on  J.  C.  Calhoun,  and  with  Gilpin  spent  an 
hour  with  Benton  and  his  most  interesting  son-in-law,  Lieutenant  Fre 
mont.  To  hear  him  talk  of  the  Oregon  country  seemed  like  being  car 
ried  among  snow-capped  mountains  of  Switzerland;  and  his  account 
of  the  valleys,  and  beautiful  runs  of  water  were  almost  enough  to  make 
you  think  that  the  garden  of  Eden  was  the  other  side  of  the  mountains. 
I  had  no  idea  that  there  were  so  many  ranges  of  mountains  or  so  beauti 
fully  picturesque  and  inviting  a  region."  In  M.  A.  DeWolfe  Howe's 
"The  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Bancroft,"  vol.  I,  pp. 259-60. 


no    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  natural  tendency  of  the  time  was  to  spread  out 
and  occupy  the  fertile  tract  about  the  Mississippi 
and  its  affluents  made  available  by  the  Louisiana 
Purchase;  and  as  a  consequence,  instead  of  pro 
gressing  steadily  westward,  the  current  of  migra 
tion  took  a  northerly  and  southerly  direction 
during  the  two  decades  intervening  between  the 
acquisition  of  Florida  and  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
the  occupation  of  Oregon,  and  the  conquest  of  Cali 
fornia.  The  westward  tendency  was  further  checked 
for  the  time  being  by  the  Congressional  legislation 
removing  the  northern  and  southern  Indians  across 
the  Mississippi,  and  thus  throwing  open  to  white 
settlement  the  lands  formerly  reserved  for  the 
"wards  of  the  Nation."  So  late  as  1840,  or  but  six 
years  before  the  United  States  definitely  took  posses 
sion  of  Oregon,  the  frontier  line  had  been  advanced 
only  to  the  western  boundary  of  Louisiana,  Arkan 
sas,  Missouri,  and  Illinois,  with  a  narrow  belt  of 
population  extending  into  eastern  Iowa  and  southern 
Wisconsin.  With  the  enormous  area  beyond  still 
open  to  settlement  and  exploitation,  there  was  'no 
compulsion  to  brave  the  dangers  of  the  desert  and 
the  mountains  for  the  sake  of  a  home  in  an  unknown 
and,  as  was  generally  believed,  unfruitful  land. 
The  situation,  in  short,  was  such  that  had  it  not  been 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  in 

for  the  enthusiasm  and  persistency  of  a  little  group 
of  agitators,  expansionists  of  the  true  stamp,  the 
whole  of  Oregon,  from  the  Mexican  to  the  Russian 
line,  must  unfailingly  have  become  the  prize  of 
Great  Britain. 

The  foremost  of  these  agitators  were  John  Floyd, 
Lewis  F.  Linn,  and  Thomas  H.  Benton,  primacy 
among  whom  must  unquestionably  be  given  to 
Benton/  Not  only  was  he  the  first  American  states 
man  to  perceive  the  danger  of  losing  Oregon  alto 
gether,  but  to  him  belongs  the  greatest  measure  of 
the  credit  attaching  to  all  who  co-operated  to  bring 
the  contest  over  Oregon  to  an  honorable  and  peace 
ful  issue.  His  voice,  also,  was  the  first  raised  in 
protest  against  the  agreement  by  which,  in  1818, 
the  Governments  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  who  with  Russia  were  then  the  sole  remain 
ing  disputants,  agreed  that  Oregon  should  for  the 
period  of  ten  years  be  thrown  open  to  settlement  by 
both  British  subjects  and  American  citizens.  The 
convention  of  1818,  Benton  angrily  declared  in 
newspaper  articles  written  before  he  had  entered 
into  public  life,  "  speaks  as  if  there  was  a  mutuality 
of  countries  on  the  northwest  coast  to  which  the 
article  [providing  for  the  joint  occupation]  was 
applicable,  and  a  mutuality  of  benefits  to  accrue  to 


ii2    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  citizens  of  both  governments  by  each  occupying 
the  country  claimed  by  the  other.  Not  so  the  fact. 
There  is  but  one  country  in  question,  and  that  is 
our  own  —  and  of  this  the  British  are  to  have  equal 
possession  with  ourselves,  and  we  no  possession 
of  theirs.  The  Columbia  is  ours;  Frazer's  River  is 
a  British  possession  to  which  no  American  ever  went 
or  ever  will  go.  ...  There  is  no  mutuality  in  any 
thing.  We  furnish  the  whole  stake  —  country, 
river,  harbor;  and  shall  not  even  maintain  the  joint 
use  of  our  own.  We  shall  be  driven  out  of  it,  and 
the  British  remain  sole  possessors."* 

This  outburst,  repeated  at  frequent  intervals 
during  the  many  years  the  joint  occupation  lasted, 
was  characteristic  of  the  man.  Dignified,  ponder 
ous,  and  pedantic,  in  outward  semblance  most  unlike 
his  fellow- Westerners,  Benton  was  at  heart  a  true 
Westerner,  and  never  more  so  than  in  the  ardor  with 
which  he  dreamed  of  new  fields  for  the  American 
pioneer  to  conquer,  new  territorial  acquisitions  for 
the  American  nation  to  make.  He  was  also  one  of 
the  greatest  statesmen  the  West,  or  for  that  matter 
the  entire  country,  has  ever  produced.  His  worth 
has  been  obscured  to  posterity,  as  it  was  to  his  own 
generation,  in  part  by  his  personal  traits  and  in  part 

*  Benton's  "Thirty  Years'  View,"  vol.  I,  pp.  109-10. 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  113 

by  the  superior  renown  of  his  leader,  Jackson,  and 
his  illustrious  contemporaries,  the  triumvirate  Clay, 
Webster,  and  Calhoun,  but  it  would  none  the  less 
be  difficult  to  name  an  individual  statesman  who 
has  labored  more  wisely  and  effectively  for  the 
future  progress  and  prosperity  of  the  United  States. 
Extravagant  some  of  his  dreams  may  have  been, 
and  extravagant  they  certainly  seemed  to  many  of 
those  who  heard  him  propound  them.  Yet  beneath 
even  his  most  fanciful  schemes  was  the  solid  sub 
stratum  of  hard  common  sense  that  made  him  the 
tireless  champion  of  such  vitally  essential  measures 
as  the  establishment  of  a  sound  monetary  standard, 
the  improvement  of  transportation  facilities,  and  the 
development  of  the  unoccupied  territories  of  the 
Union. 

He  came  logically  by  his  expansionistic  senti 
ments.  Born  in  North  Carolina  in  1782,  and,  like 
Houston  of  Texas  fame,  migrating  at  an  early  age 
to  Tennessee,  the  War  of  1812  saw  him  in  service 
first  as  one  of  Jackson's  volunteers,  and  afterwards 
on  the  Canadian  frontier.  As  luck  would  have  it, 
he  was  given  little  opportunity  to  learn  the  art  of 
warfare.  But  the  tasks  allotted  to  him  afforded  a 
comprehensive  view  of  the  extent  and  possibilities 
of  the  land  of  his  birth,  and  in  this  way  he  became 


ii4    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

inspired  with  the  ambition  to  play  a  part  in  develop 
ing  its  resources  and  advancing  it  to  headship 
among  the  nations  of  the  world.  His  removal 
across  the  Mississippi  and  into  Missouri,  where  he 
settled  at  St.  Louis  in  1815  and  soon  afterwards 
began  to  practise  law,  served  to  intensify  this  am 
bition. 

He  found  himself  in  a  veritable  atmosphere  of 
expansion.  Trappers  and  hunters  from  all  sections 
of  the  new  West  made  their  headquarters  at  St. 
Louis,  then  little  more  than  a  village,  but  a  center 
from  which  all  roads  to  the  wilderness  seemed  to 
radiate;  there  was  a  constant  coming  and  going  of 
traders,  each  with  his  tale  of  marvels  and  riches  in 
the  distant  parts  where  the  sun  was  lost  to  view; 
the  caravan  of  hopeful  emigrants  was  a  familiar 
sight.  Giving  full  rein  to  his  imagination,  Benton 
availed  himself  of  every  means  of  learning  more 
about  the  plains  and  prairies,  which  he  believed 
would  soon  be  populated  by  an  army  of  lusty  pio 
neers.  Especially  was  his  fancy  drawn  to  the  depths 
beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  his  ardent  vision 
already  descrying  the  day  when  the  American  people 
would  take  their  stand  on  the  shores  of  the  Pacific 
and  confront  the  peoples  of  the  ancient  world. 
Little  by  little,  from  trapper  and  trader  and  explorer, 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  115 

from  the  pathfinder  William  Clark  himself,  passing 
the  evening  of  his  life  in  St.  Louis,  he  drew  such  a 
fund  of  information  that  soon  not  a  man  in  the  whole 
United  States  had  equally  profound  knowledge  of 
the  far  Northwest. 

To  be  sure,  Benton  was  at  first  among  those  who 
imagined  that  the  Rockies  must  mark  the  western 
boundary  of  the  United  States,  and  that  American 
colonization  beyond  the  mountains  would  mean  the 
creation  of  an  independent  Republic.  But  this  did 
not  deter  him  from  urging  such  colonization,  if  only 
for  the  reason,  to  quote  from  a  speech  of  after  years, 
that  Oregon  "should  be  possessed  by  our  descend 
ants  who  will  be  our  friends,  and  not  by  aliens  who 
will  be  our  enemies."*  And  soon,  although,  as  is 
indicated  by  the  quotation,  he  never  quite  shook  off 
his  separatistic  fancies,  he  was  preaching  the  occu 
pation  of  Oregon  on  grounds  connected  solely  with 
the  increased  power,  prestige,  and  wealth  that  the 
United  States  would  gain  thereby.  His  opportunity 
came  with  his  election  in  1820  as  one  of  Missouri's 
first  two  United  States  Senators.  Arrived  at  Wash 
ington,  he  found  at  " Brown's  Hotel,"  where  he  took 
rooms,  Dr.  John  Floyd,  a  Virginia  Congressman 
who,  from  a  long  residence  in  Kentucky,  was  deeply 

*  Benton's  "Thirty  Years'  View,"  vol.  II,  p.  430. 


n6    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

interested  in  all  phases  of  Western  development, 
and  two  old  acquaintances  who  had  been  employed 
by  John  Jacob  Astor  to  assist  in  the  founding  of 
Astoria.  The  four  talked  long  and  frequently  con 
cerning  the  situation  in  Oregon  —  or,  to  be  more 
exact,  in  the  Columbia  Valley,  in  which  alone  they 
felt  an  interest  —  and  it  was  resolved  that  assistance 
from  the  Government  should  be  sought  to  overcome 
the  advantage  the  British  were  gaining  through  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company's  policy  of  killing  off 
American  trade.  Benton  for  the  moment  could  do 
nothing,  as  he  was  precluded  from  taking  his  seat 
in  the  Senate  pending  the  final  decision  with  regard 
to  admitting  Missouri  into  the  Union;  but  Floyd 
enthusiastically  volunteered  to  initiate  action  in  the 
House  of  Representatives. 

His  first  step  was  taken  in  December,  1820,  when 
he  moved  for  an  inquiry  into  the  expediency  of  mili 
tary  occupation  of  the  country  about  the  Columbia, 
and  succeeded  in  securing  the  appointment  of  a  com 
mittee,  of  which  he  himself  was  made  chairman,  to 
report  on  his  motion.  Now  began  a  patience- 
exhausting  struggle  which  was  to  last  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  January,  1821,  the  committee 
made  its  report,  emphasizing  the  value  of  the  Colum 
bia  Valley  as  a  means  of  enlarging  the  commerce  of 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  117 

the  United  States  —  a  favorite  argument  of  Benton's 
—  by  providing  a  direct  line  of  communication  with 
China.  At  the  same  time  the  committee  presented 
a  bill  authorizing  official  occupation,  extinguishment 
of  the  Indian  title,  and  provision  for  a  government. 
But  this  measure  was  allowed  to  die  without  reach 
ing  a  vote,  and  a  like  fate  overtook  a  similar  bill 
reported  by  the  same  committee  in  January,  1822. 
In  no  wise  disheartened,  Floyd  returned  to  the 
attack,  delivering  late  in  the  same  year  the  first  speech 
ever  heard  in  Congress  on  the  Oregon  question.  In 
a  way,  it  was  a  masterly  effort,  making  plain  the 
advantages  accruing  from  possession  of  the  Colum 
bia  Valley,  and  advocating  its  occupation  by  United 
States  troops.  It  awakened  little  enthusiasm,  how 
ever,  and  was  met  by  the  declaration,  to  be  heard 
frequently  in  the  following  years,  that  by  extending 
the  territory  of  the  United  States  across  the  moun 
tains  the  Union  would  be  exposed  to  dismemberment 
and  to  increased  chances  of  war. 

Meantime,  Missouri,  after  vexatious  delays,  had 
been  granted  admission,  and  Benton  his  seat  in  the 
Senate.  Rising  from  that  seat,  in  February,  1823, 
he  served  notice  on  his  fellow-Senators,  that  unless 
immediate  measures  were  taken  to  colonize  and 
fortify  the  Columbia  Valley  all  claim  to  it  might  as 


n8    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

well  be  abandoned.  Hitherto,  neither  Floyd  nor 
those  who  opposed  Floyd  had  touched  on  the  fact 
that  the  American  title  had  been  challenged  by 
Great  Britain  on  the  ground  of  prior  discovery  and 
purchase  from  the  Indians,  but  Benton  in  a  ringing 
speech  set  forth  the  true  state  of  affairs.  Unhappily, 
he  also  indulged  in  grandiloquent  and,  as  it  seemed 
at  the  time,  extravagant  suggestions  which  only 
amused  those  who  heard  him.  He  would  occupy 
the  Columbia  in  order,  for  one  thing,  to  carry  the 
lights  of  religion,  science,  and  free  government  to 
the  "  imprisoned  and  exuberant  populations "  of 
China  and  Japan,  who  might  also  find  their  "gran 
ary"  in  its  smiling  valley.  And,  with  a  fine  outburst 
of  new  West  indignation,  he  declared:  "I,  for  one, 
had  as  lief  see  American  ministers  going  to  the 
Emperors  of  China  and  Japan,  to  the  King  of  Per 
sia,  and  even  to  the  Grand  Turk,  as  to  see  them 
dancing  attendance  upon  those  European  legiti 
mates  who  hold  everything  American  in  contempt  and 
detestation."  *  At  which  everybody  in  and  out  of  the 
Senate,  save  those  who  shared  Benton 's  faith  in  the 
trans-Pacific  destinies  of  the  United  States,  laughed 
heartily,  and  forgot  all  about  the  really  vital  issue  of 
forestalling  the  British  in  the  occupation  of  Oregon. 

*  Benton's  "  Thirty  Years'  View,"  vol.  I,  p.  14. 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON* 
From  a  portrait  in  the  possession  of  the  Missouri  Historical  Society. 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  119 

In  the  House  the  zealous  Floyd  was  more  for 
tunate.  On  December  23,  1824,  or  more  than  four 
years  after  he  had  first  brought  the  subject  to  the 
attention  of  his  colleagues,  he  had  the  satisfaction 
of  participating  in  the  passage  of  a  bill  by  which  the 
President  was  authorized  to  occupy  the  Columbia 
Valley  with  a  military  force,  and  to  set  up  a  territorial 
government  whenever  he  might  find  it  expedient  to 
do  so.  The  Senate,  however,  had  still  to  be  reck 
oned  with  and  the  Senate  proved  obdurate,  despite 
Ben  ton's  vehement  pleadings;  the  decisive  argument 
being  advanced  by  Dickerson,  of  New  Jersey,  who 
asserted  that  military  occupation  would  lead  to  a 
war  with  Great  Britain,  and  justly,  as- an  infraction 
of  the  convention  of  1818  providing  for  joint  occupa 
tion  by  the  two  countries.  Upon  this  Benton, 
when  the  opportunity  again  offered,  sought  to  attain 
his  object  by  terminating  the  joint  occupation.  The 
ten-year  period  would  come  to  an  end  in  1828,  and 
he  begged  the  Senate  not  to  ratify  any  renewal  of 
the  agreement,  but  to  insist  instead  on  a  settlement 
"on  the  basis  of  a  separation  of  interests,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  permanent  boundary"  between 
the  English  and  American  possessions  west  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains. 

Again   he  was  doomed   to  disappointment.     By 


120    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  convention  of  1818  the  forty-ninth  parallel  had 
been  accepted  as  the  boundary  between  British 
North  America  and  the  United  States  from  the  Lake 
of  the  Woods  to  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains; 
but  all  attempts  made  by  the  United  States  to  per 
suade  the  British  Government  to  carry  that  line  to 
the  Pacific  proved  fruitless.  Over  the  mountains  it 
would  indeed  carry  it,  but  only  to  the  point  where 
it  touched  the  Columbia  River,  which  was  thence 
to  form  the  boundary  to  the  ocean.  Thus  Great 
Britain  would  gain  a  waterway  and  a  large  slice  of 
territory  to  which  the  United  States  felt  herself 
rightfully  entitled.  It  was  on  this  rock  that  negotia 
tions  were  wrecked  in  1818,  leading  to  the  joint 
occupation  compromise;  and  for  this  reason  failure 
again  resulted  when  negotiations  were  resumed  in 
1826,  after  Russia  had  abandoned  the  contest  and  by 
treaty  with  both  her  rivals  consented  to  accept  the 
parallel  of  fifty-four  degrees,  forty  minutes,  as  the 
southern  boundary  of  her  American  possessions. 
The  following  year,  as  the  only  peaceful  way  out  of 
the  difficulty,  it  was  agreed  that  the  convention  of 
1818  should  be  renewed,  not  for  a  definite  but  an 
indefinite  period,  terminable  on  twelve  months' 
notice  by  either  party.  This  new  convention,  not 
withstanding  Benton's  direful  predictions,  the  Senate 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  121 

duly   ratified,   only   six   Senators   uniting  with   the 
champion  of  Oregon  to  vote  against  ratification. 

Thereafter,  with  the  exception  of  a  futile  effort 
by  Floyd,  in  1829,  to  secure  the  passage  of  a  bill  for 
the  construction  of  forts  west  of  the  Rockies  and 
the  exploration  of  the  region,  the  Oregon  Question 
slumbered  for  nearly  a  decade  so  far  as  Congress 
was  concerned.  Floyd's  withdrawal  from  the  House 
left  Oregon  no  champion  there,  and  Benton,  in  the 
Senate,  was  too  preoccupied  with  the  more  urgent 
business  that  now  devolved  upon  him  as  exponent 
and  advocate  of  the  policies  of  President  Jackson. 
But  he  did  not  lose  sight  of  his  country's  transmon- 
tane  interests,  however  much  he  might  despair  for 
them;  and  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  satisfaction  with 
which  he  followed  and,  so  far  as  he  could,  promoted 
the  extra-Congressional  movement  that  soon  set 
in  and  was  ultimately  to  vindicate  the  American 
claims.  It  has  already  been  observed  that  one  of 
the  reasons  for  the  prevalent  apathy  was  the  lack 
of  information  respecting  the  resources  and  charac 
ter  of  Oregon.  To  no  small  extent  this  was  remedied 
by  the  publication  of  the  detailed  reports  of  the 
legislative  committees  appointed  from  time  to  time 
to  inquire  into  the  subject.  Enlightenment  also 
came  through  the  tales  carried  home  by  the  explorers 


122     ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

who,  beginning  with  the  discovery  of  the  famous 
South  Pass  through  the  Rockies  in  1823,  ranged  all 
through  the  Columbia  Valley  in  the  interests  of 
American  rivals  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company. 
Thus  stimulated,  popular  interest  in  the  disputed 
territory  steadily  augmented,  until  a  demand  began 
to  be  heard  from  different  parts  of  the  country,  and 
notably  from  Benton's  State,  for  land  grants  in 
Oregon  and  disruption  of  the  monopoly  which  me 
Hudson's  Bay  Company,  a  purely  British  organiza 
tion,  had  enjoyed  ever  since  its  absorption  of  the 
Northwest  Company,  the  purchaser  of  the  single 
American  trading  post  of  Astoria.  The  debate  on 
Floyd's  bill,  in  1829,  revealed  the  fact  that  three 
distinct  companies  of  would-be  emigrants,  one  of 
which  was  from  Massachusetts  and  was  said  to 
number  three  thousand  souls,  were  petitioning  Con 
gress  for  land  across  the  Rockies.  Nothing  came  of 
these  petitions,  but  nevertheless,  influenced  perhaps 
by  the  extravagant  pictures  of  the  eccentric  Boston 
schoolmaster,  Hall  Kelley,  who  for  some  years  had 
been  lecturing  on  the  riches  of  Oregon,  an  expedition 
started  from  New  England  in  1832  under  the  leader 
ship  of  Nathaniel  Wyeth,  of  Cambridge,  Massa 
chusetts. 

The  real  colonization  of  Oregon,   however,   the 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  123 

movement  which  Floyd  and  Benton  had  so  long 
hoped  to  see  under  way,  began  two  years  later  with 
the  arrival  from  the  East  of  a  small  party  of  American 
missionaries  to  the  Oregon  Indians.  Soon  other 
missionaries  followed,  including  the  celebrated 
Marcus  Whitman,  about  whom  an  interesting  legend 
has  been  woven  in  connection  with  the  "  great  migra 
tion"  which  presently  brought  upwards  of  a  thou 
sand  American  colonists  into  Oregon.*  Settling  on 
the  Willamette  and  Walla  Walla  Rivers,  and  estab 
lishing  a  branch  on  Lapwai  Creek,  not  far  from  its 
junction  with  the  Clearwater,  these  missionaries 
gradually  attracted  about  their  stations  not  merely 

*  The  story,  still  repeated  by  many  writers,  is  to  the  effect  that  Whit 
man,  while  visiting  a  post  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company,  heard  of  a 
scheme  to  fill  the  Columbia  Valley  with  colonists  from  Canada,  and  at 
once  resolved  to  hasten  to  Washington,  acquaint  the  authorities  with  the 
situation,  and  urge  immediate  colonization  from  the  United  States. 
Saddling  a  horse  and  starting  out,  despite  the  protests  of  his  associates, 
he  made  the  long  journey  eastward  at  imminent  peril  of  his  life,  intent 
only  on  "saving  Oregon"  for  his  country.  At  Washington  he  met  with 
a  frigid  reception  from  Secretary  of  State  Webster  and  President  Tyler, 
but  secured  from  the  latter  a  promise  that  if  the  feasibility  of  a  wagon 
route  across  the  Rockies  could  be  demonstrated,  he  would  do  all  in  his 
power  to  promote  colonization  and  keep  the  British  from  winning  Ore 
gon.  With  this  promise  in  mind,  the  legend  further  has  it,  Whitman 
himself  organized  the  "great  migration,"  and  guided  it  safely  across 
the  continent.  Unfortunately  for  this  romantic  narrative,  documentary 
evidence  has  been  adduced  by  Professors  Bourne  and  Marshall  showing 
that  the  reason  for  Whitman's  journey  was  to  "save,"  not  Oregon, 
but  his  mission  station,  which  he  had  learned  the  Board  of  Missions 
purposed  abolishing;  and  that  he  simply  availed  himself  of  "the  great 
migration"  as  a  means  of  securing  an  escort  on  the  way  back  to  the 
Columbia  Valley. 


124    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  Indians  they  had  come  to  convert,  but  little 
groups  of  settlers  from  the  United  States;  and  in 
this  way,  though  at  first  so  slowly  that  it  is  estimated 
there  were  at  the  end  of  1841  not  more  than  four 
hundred  Americans  in  all  Oregon,  the  American 
farmer  began  to  dispute  supremacy  in  the  Columbia 
Valley  with  the  British  trapper  and  trader.  Immi 
gration,  however,  still  hesitated,  owing  to  the  uncer 
tainty  as  to  territorial  rights,  and  it  was  to  end  this 
uncertainty  that  Benton's  colleague  from  Missouri, 
Lewis  F.  Linn,  in  February,  1838,  brought  in  a  bill 
for  the  occupation  of  the  Columbia  by  troops  from 
the  United  States,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Terri 
tory  to  be  known  as  Oregon  Territory. 

Once  more  the  question  of  title  had  been  thrust 
upon  the  attention  of  an  unwilling  Government,  and 
this  time  with  an  insistence  that  would  not  be  denied. 
Benton,  as  stanch  an  expansionist  as  ever,  hurried 
to  Linn's  assistance  —  if,  indeed,  he  had  not  in 
spired  his  action  —  and,  by  securing  reference  of 
the  bill  to  a  select  committee  with  Linn  at  its  head, 
insured  a  favorable  report  on  the  measure.  But  it 
proved  impossible  to  bring  about  a  favorable  vote, 
and  again  the  contest  dragged,  the  only  immediate 
result  of  the  Missourians'  efforts,  renewed  in  1839, 
1840,  1841,  and  1842,  being  an  access  of  popular 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  125 

interest  in  Oregon  and  a  slowly  increasing  drift 
Oregon  ward  of  settlers  from  the  United  States.  To 
further  this  movement,  Benton,  now  more  deter 
mined  than  ever  to  force  a  territorial  adjustment 
with  Great  Britain,  hit  upon  the  expedient- of  send 
ing  out  his  son-in-law,  John  C.  Fremont,  a  young 
officer  in  the  United  States  army,  to  explore  the  coun 
try  west  of  Missouri  and  up  to  and  beyond  the 
Rockies. 

Fremont's  special  business,  as  Benton  explains 
in  his  invaluable  " Thirty  Years'  View,"  was  to 
locate  the  South  Pass  and  fix  the  most  direct  route 
for  emigration  to  the  Columbia;  it  being  believed 
that  emigration  would  also  be  encouraged  .by  the 
fact  that  Fremont's  work  had  the  sanction  and 
support  of  the  Government.  His  exploration  was 
completed  in  the  summer  of  1842,  and  was  an 
entire  success.  The  next  year  witnessed  the  "  great 
migration"  of  the  thousand  sturdy  Americans  who, 
starting  out  in  a  long  caravan  of  " prairie  schooners" 
from  near  the  site  of  Kansas  City,  in  Benton 's  own 
picturesque  language,  made  "  their  long  pilgrimage 
overland  from  the  frontiers  of  Missouri,  with  their 
wives  and  children,  their  flocks  and  herds,  their 
implements  of  husbandry  and  weapons  of  defense 
—  traversing  the  vast  inclined  plane  to  the  base  of 


126    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  Rocky  Mountains,  crossing  that  barrier  (deemed 
impassable  by  Europeans)  and  descending  the  wide 
slope  which  declines  from  the  mountains  to  the 
Pacific."*  History  was  in  truth  repeating  itself. 
The  sons  of  pioneer  fathers  and  grandfathers,  who 
had  themselves  crossed  a  mountain  barrier  to  find 
homes  in  a  land  where  nature  and  the  savage  formerly 
reigned  supreme,  they  in  their  turn  were  answering 
the  call  of  the  wilderness,  the  invitation  of  the  setting 
sun.  Not  to  separate  from  the  Union,  but  to  strike 
the  roots  of  the  Union  more  deeply  and  more  widely 
into  America,  to  bring  up  children  who,  in  a  free 
and  open  world,  should  labor  in  their  generation 
for  the  Union  —  such,  however  indistinctly  they 
were  conscious  of  it,  was  the  mission  of  those  early 
voyagers  of  the  prairie. 

Meantime,  important  events  were  transpiring  at 
Washington.  Despatched  thither  by  Great  Britain 
to  effect  a  settlement  of  the  Maine  boundary  and 
other  long-standing  disputes,  Lord  Ashburton  in 
June,  1842,  began  negotiations  with  Secretary 
Webster  which  it  was  confidently  expected  by  many 
in  the  United  States  would  end  for  all  time  the 
troublesome  Oregon  question.  But  when  the 
Webster-Ashburton  Treaty  was  finally  framed  and 

*Benton's  "Thirty  Years'  View,"  vol.  II,  p.  469. 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  127 

sent  to  the  Senate  for  ratification,  it  was  found  that 
Oregon  was  not  so  much  as  mentioned,  the  sole 
allusion  to  it  being  contained  in  President  Tyler's 
message  accompanying  the  treaty.  "  After  sundry 
informal  communications  with  the  British  Minister 
upon  the  subject  of  the  claims  of  the  two  countries 
to  the  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,"  explained 
Tyler,  who  evidently  felt  that  some  explanation  was 
necessary,  "so  little  probability  was  found  to  exist 
of  coming  to  any  agreement  on  that  subject  at 
present  that  it  was  not  thought  expedient  to  make 
it  one  of  the  subjects  of  formal  negotiation  to 
be  entered  upon  between  this  Government  and 
the  British  Minister  as  part  of  his  duties  under 
his  special  mission."*  Now,  for  the  first  time, 
popular  feeling  began  to  run  really  high,  and 
on  every  side  were  heard  expressions  of  disap 
pointment  and  resentment,  symptoms  of  a  nascent 
animosity  which  was  sedulously  fanned  by  the 
wrathful  Benton. 

In  one  of  his  longest  and  ablest  speeches  on  the 
Oregon  question,  delivered  when  the  Webster- 
Ashburton  Treaty  came  up  for  ratification,  he  ex 
posed  mercilessly  the  shortcomings  of  the  diplomacy 

*  James  D.  Richardson's  "Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents," 
vol.  IV,  p.  1 66. 


128    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

of  the  past  in  giving  Great  Britain  an  opportunity  to 
set  up  a  claim  to  the  valley  of  the  Columbia,  pre 
sented  clearly  the  superior  grounds  of  the  American 
claim,  giving  title,  he  pointed  out,  to  all  the  region 
west  of  the  Rockies  between  the  forty-second  and 
forty-ninth  parallels;  and  denounced  in  unmeasured 
terms  the  silence  obtaining  in  the  treaty.  "The 
President  tells  us,"  he  sarcastically  cried,  athat 
there  is  'no  probability  of  coming  to  any  agreement 
at  present/  Then,  when  can  the  agreement  be 
made  ?  If  refused  now,  when  is  it  to  come  ?  Never, 
until  we  show  that  we  prefer  war  to  ignominious 
peace."  "  The  fact  is,"  he  continued,  waxing  angrier 
with  every  word,  "no  agreement  is  ever  intended. 
Contented  with  her  possession,  Great  Britain  wants 
delay  that  time  may  ripen  possession  into  title,  and 
fortunate  events  facilitate  her  designs.  My  col 
league  [Linn]  and  myself  were  sounded  on  this 
point.  Our  answers  forbade  the  belief  that  we 
would  compromise  or  sacrifice  the  rights  and  in 
terests  of  our  country;  and  this  may  have  been  the 
reason  why  there  were  no  ' formal  negotiations'  in 
relation  to  it.  Had  we  been  'soft  enough/  there 
might  have  been  an  agreement  to  divide  our  country 
by  the  river,  or  to  refer  the  whole  title  to  the  decision 
of  a  friendly  sovereign.  We  were  not  soft  enough 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  129 

for  that."*    He  would,  therefore,  urge  all  who  heard 
him  to  vote  against  the  ratification  of  the  treaty. 

In  this  plea  he  failed,  and  the  treaty  was  duly 
ratified.  But  so  thoroughly  had  he  aroused  the 
Senate  that  a  demand  arose  for  action  on  Linn's 
latest  bill,  which  included  a  land  grant  of  six  hun 
dred  and  forty  acres  to  every  white  male  emigrant 
to  Oregon.  Then  began  a  stormy  debate,  with 
Benton  and  Linn  meeting  a  powerful  opposition 
headed  by  none  other  than  John  C.  Calhoun,  him 
self  at  that  very  moment  moving  earth  and  sky  to 
achieve  the  annexation  of  Texas.  Let  matters 
stand  as  they  are,  urged  Calhoun,  and  "  silent  immi 
gration"  will  finally  save  Oregon  for  the  United 
States  without  involving  the  nation  in  the  possi 
bilities  of  a  war.  Here,  manifestly,  was  the  baneful 
influence  of  sectionalism.  Oregon  would  not  bene 
fit,  nay,  was  likely  to  injure,  the  slavery  system 
and  the  political  power  of  the  slaveholding  States. 
Therefore  it  would  not  do  to  feel  over-anxious  about 
Oregon.  But  not  even  the  eloquence  of  Calhoun 
could  stem  the  tide.  Passing  the  Senate,  though  by 
the  narrowest  of  margins,  Linn's  bill  was  hurried  to 
the  House ;  where,  however,  to  the  joy  of  its  enemies, 
it  met  an  opposition  too  strong  to  be  beaten  down. 

*  Benton's  "Thirty  Years'  View,"  vol.  II,  pp.  428-29. 


i3o    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Before  Congress  again  assembled  Linn  had  died, 
and  Benton  remained  the  sole  survivor  of  the  origi 
nal  champions  of  Oregon,  with  victory  seemingly 
as  remote  as  ever.  Then,  suddenly  and  unexpect 
edly,  the  situation  completely  changed,  in  a  way 
that  at  last  presaged  definite  action.  But  it  was  not 
a  change  altogether  to  Benton's  liking.  He  had 
preached  unfalteringly  the  doctrine  of  war,  if  it  were 
necessary  to  go  to  war  to  secure  American  rights 
beyond  the  Rockies.  He  had  not  preached  what 
now  began  to  be  asserted  with  the  greatest  freedom 
—  that  American  rights  beyond  the  Rockies  included 
the  entire  country  from  California  to  Russian 
America,  and  that  the  United  States  should  give 
battle  rather  than  relinquish  any  part  of  it.  Nor 
was  this  assertion  made  only  by  reckless  and  excited 
individuals.  It  was  even  voiced  by  the  head  of  the 
nation,  the  discredited  Tyler,  President  without  a 
party,  and  prepared  to  go  to  any  length  to  obtain 
one.  To  curry  favor  with  the  Democrats  of  the 
South  he  had  espoused  the  cause  of  Texas  annexa 
tion;  similarly,  to  obtain  popularity  among  the 
Democrats  of  the  North  and  West,  he  declared,  in 
his  annual  Message  to  Congress,  December,  1843, 
that  "  after  a  rigid  and,  as  far  as  practicable,  un 
biased  examination  of  the  subject,  the  United  States 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  131 

have  always  contended  that  their  rights  appertain 
to  the  entire  region  of  country  lying  on  the  Pacific 
and  embraced  within  north  latitude  forty-two  de 
grees  and  north  latitude  fifty-four  degrees,  forty 
minutes." 

Caught  up  as  a  party  cry,  and  with  the  "reoccu- 
pation"  of  the  whole  of  Oregon  inserted  side  by  side 
with  the  annexation  of  Texas  as  a  plank  of  the 
Democratic  platform  on  which  James  K.  Polk  was 
nominated  for  the  Presidency,  the  country  during 
the  campaign  of  1844  rang  with  the  defiant  slogan 
of  "Fifty-four  forty  or  fight ! " *  From  Great  Britain 

*  The  publication  of  this  chapter  in  The  Outlook  drew  from  a 
Nebraska  correspondent,  signing  himself  C.  G.  P.,  the  following  interest 
ing  statement:  "In  'The  Romance  of  Expansion'  I  was  much  inter 
ested  in  the  settlement  of  the  question  of  the  Northwestern  Boundary, 
particularly  so  because  I  have  a  bit  of  unwritten  history  in  connection 
with  it.  About  the  year  1840  a  young  man  by  the  name  of  Enoch  W. 
Eastman,  fully  equipped  for  the  practice  of  law,  came  from  Vermont 
to  Burlington,  Iowa,  and  put  out  his  shingle.  Until  the  beginning  of 
the  Civil  War  he  was  an  old-line  Democrat.  He  soon  rose  to  promi 
nence  in  politics.  When  Iowa  applied  for  admission  as  a  State,  he  was 
one  of  the  commission  sent  to  Washington  with  that  business,  and  was 
himself  instrumental  in  fixing  the  boundaries  as  they  now  stand.  He 
was  Lieutenant- Govern  or  during  the  war,  and  after  that  was  always 
called  'Governor  Eastman.'  After  the  war  he  again  took  up  the  prac 
tice  of  law  in  Eldora,  where  he  spent  the  remainder  of  his  life.  During 
the  Prohibition  campaign  in  Iowa  he  was  an  active  advocate  of  the 
amendment.  I  was  living  at  the  time  in  Whitten.  He  came  there  to 
speak,  and  I  had  the  honor  of  entertaining  him.  In  conversation  he 
was  telling  me  some  things  about  the  early  history  of  Iowa.  Something 
he  said  reminded  me  of  it,  and  I  asked  him  if  he  remembered  the  old 
Democratic  watchword,  'Fifty-four  forty  or  fight.'  He  raised  his  right 
hand,  and  with  great  force  brought  it  down  upon  his  knee,  saying, 


132    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

came  back  distinctly  warlike  echoes,  increasing 
when  Polk  in  his  inaugural  displayed  every  sign  of 
intending  to  stand  squarely  on  the  platform  that 
had  elected  him.  Already,  however,  it  was  evident 
that  the  United  States  would  be  involved  in  one  war 
as  the  result  of  the  annexation  of  Texas;  and  neither 
Polk  nor  anybody  save  " fifty- four  forty"  extremists 
of  the  type  of  Cass,  of  Michigan,  and  Hannegan,  of 
Indiana,  was  willing  to  see  her  engaged  in  another. 
A  compromise,  then,  was  assured  —  provided  Great 
Britain  would  compromise.  That  was  the  rub. 
July,  1845,  Buchanan,  then  Secretary  of  State, 
offered  the  old  line  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel  between 
the  British  and  American  possessions  west  of  the 
Rockies,  an  offer  which  was  rejected  by  the  British 
Minister,  Pakenham,  in  terms  that  were  regarded 
as  offensive. 

To  give  Polk  the  credit  that  seems  fairly  his  due, 

'That  was  first  written  on  that  knee.'  He  was  a  delegate  to  a  Demo 
cratic  county  convention.  The  convention  was  held  in  the  open  air. 
The  committee  on  resolutions,  not  being  accustomed  to  that  sort  of 
work,  asked  him  to  help  them.  He  took  a  piece  of  wrapping  paper, 
spread  it  on  his  knee,  and,  after  writing  some  resolutions  about  local 
politics,  added,  'In  the  matter  of  the  Northwestern  Boundary  we  are 
for  Fifty-four  forty  or  fight.'  The  State  convention  met  a  few  days 
later  and  adopted  the  same  resolution.  It  was  then  taken  up  by  the 
Democratic  press  and  speakers  and  spread  like  wildfire.  The  public 
did  not  know  and  could  not  guess  who  was  the  author.  In  the  guesses 
many  prominent  Democrats  were  named,  but  most  of  them  centered 
on  Lewis  Cass,  of  Michigan."  In  The  Outlook,  vol.  XC,  p.  87. 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  133 

it  was  probably  his  action  in  withdrawing  Buchanan's 
offer  and  reasserting,  as  he  did  in  his  first  annual 
Message,  December,  1845,  his  determination  to 
stand  out  for  the  whole  of  Oregon,  that  brought 
Great  Britain  into  a  more  pliant  frame  of  mind. 
Polk,  as  subsequent  events  showed,  was  "bluffing" 
-  to  use  a  homely  but  expressive  phrase  —  yet 
without  his  "bluff"  the  controversy  would  scarcely 
have  been  settled  on  the  precise  terms  which  the 
United  States  had  from  the  first  been  willing  to 
accept  —  and  terms,  it  cannot  be  too  thoroughly 
understood,  which  were  absolutely  just.  Of  late 
years  the  tendency  among  historical  writers  has  been 
to  decry  the  settlement  as  an  act  of  almost  criminal 
concession  on  the  part  of  the  Administration  - 
whereas  it  is  perhaps  the  most  praiseworthy  measure 
which  the  Polk  government  achieved.  In  any  event, 
Polk's  seeming  inflexibility,  supported  by  the  action 
of  Congress  in  authorizing  him  to  give  the  neces 
sary  twelve  months'  notice  terminating  the  joint 
occupation  agreement,  convinced  Great  Britain 
that  concession  on  her  part  was  imperative  if  she 
would  avoid  a  war;  and  no  more  than  the  United 
States  did  she  desire  to  engage  in  hostilities.  Before 
the  summer  of  1846  arrived,  she  had  made  a  com 
plete  surrender,  yielding  her  claims  in  the  valley  of 


i34    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  Columbia  and  accepting  the  forty-ninth  parallel 
as  the  demarcation  line  between  her  far  West  posses 
sions  and  those  of  the  United  States. 

Still  the  situation  was  not  free  from  danger.  So 
strong  was  the  " fifty-four  forty"  sentiment  in  the 
Senate  that  it  was  questionable  whether  a  treaty 
constituting  the  forty-ninth  parallel  as  the  boundary 
line  would  be  ratified ;  and  non-ratification  would  not 
merely  embarrass  the  Administration,  but  almost 
surely  lead  to  increased  complications  with  Great 
Britain.  In  his  dilemma  Polk  turned  to  the  one 
man  who,  he  felt,  could  save  the  day  for  him  and  for 
Oregon  —  Benton,  of  Missouri.  Already  one  of 
the  most  abused  statesmen  in  the  country  by  reason 
of  the  bravery  and  honesty  with  which  he  denied  the 
right  of  the  United  States  to  any  part  of  Oregon 
north  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel,  Benton  cheerfully 
accepted  the  added  burden  laid  upon  him.  His 
counsel  to  Polk  was  to  fall  back  upon  an  obsolete 
custom  and  request  the  Senate  to  give  him,  as  Presi 
dent,  its  advice  upon  the  terms  of  the  treaty  to  be 
negotiated  with  Great  Britain,  submitting,  for  such 
advice,  a  draft  of  the  treaty  that  had  been  already 
arranged.  By  this  device  the  responsibility  for 
receding  from  the  "fifty-four  forty"  line  would  be 
shifted  from  the  President  to  the  Senate.  Eagerly 


THOMAS  HART  BENTON  135 

Polk  clutched  at  this  straw.  But,  he  nervously 
asked,  would  the  Senate  take  the  desired  action,  a 
two-thirds  vote  being  requisite?  Benton  engaged 
that  it  would,  and,  to  make  good  his  pledge,  saw 
personally  every  Senatorial  member  of  the  opposition 
party  —  the  Whig  party  —  and  secured  the  promise 
of  sufficient  votes  to  carry  the  day  over  those  Demo 
crats  who,  like  Cass  and  Hannegan,  would  have  all 
of  Oregon  or  none. 

June  10,  1846,  the  " advice"  was  asked.  It  was 
an  anxious  moment  for  both  Polk  and  Benton, 
facing  a  torrent  of  angry  invective  and  denounced 
as  traitors  to  their  party  and  their  country.  For  two 
days  the  storm  raged,  and  then,  the  Whigs  faithfully 
falling  into  line,  by  thirty-seven  votes  to  twelve  the 
President's  wishes  were  met  in  a  terse,  businesslike 
resolution.  Three  days  afterwards  the  treaty  itself 
was  signed  by  the  Secretary  of  State  and  the  British 
Minister,  and  in  another  two  days  the  Senate  ratified 
it  by  an  increased  vote  on  each  side  —  forty-one  in 
favor  of,  and  fourteen  opposed  to,  ratification.  In 
such  wise,  nearly  thirty  years  after  he  had  uttered 
his  first  protest  against  the  presence  of  the  British 
in  the  pleasant  lands  about  the  Columbia  River,  did 
Thomas  Hart  Benton  triumph  in  the  cause  he  had 
so  stoutly  advocated. 


CHAPTER  VI 

JOHN    CHARLES    FREMONT    AND    THE    CONQUEST    OF 
CALIFORNIA 

THE  Mexican  War,  by  which  the  United  States 
gained  her  second  Pacific  coast  acquisition  and 
rounded  out  her  contiguous  possessions  on  the  North 
American  continent,  has  long  been  a  subject  of 
warm  debate.  The  prevailing  view  is  that  it  was  a 
war  of  shameless  aggression  and  spoliation,  forced 
on  Mexico  in  the  interests  of  the  slaveholders  of  the 
Southern  States.  Against  this,  and  not  wholly 
without  reason,  it  is  urged  that  the  war  was  the 
outcome  not  of  a  sectional  but  of  a  national  desire, 
and  extenuating  circumstances  are  found  in  the 
manifest  eagerness  of  the  Mexican  people  to  engage 
in  hostilities,  the  persistent  refusal  of  the  Mexican 
Government  to  pay  damage  claims  duly  awarded 
to  the  United  States  by  international  arbitration, 
and  the  summary  treatment  accorded  the  commis 
sioner  sent  by  President  Polk  to  negotiate  a  peaceful 
settlement  of  these  claims  and  of  the  difficulties 

growing   out   of   the   annexation   of   Texas.     Both 

136 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  137 

views  agree,  however,  in  affirming  that  the  prime 
object  of  the  war  was  to  compel  a  boundary  read 
justment  which  should  give  the  United  States  pos 
session  of  the  whole  of  Texas,  as  anciently  delimited, 
and  of  the  fertile  region  of  California,  with  its  smiling 
plains  and  valleys,  its  lofty  mountains,  and  its  splen 
did  frontage  on  the  Pacific. 

Possession  of  California  had,  indeed,  been  de 
sired  by  the  United  States  years  before  resort  was 
had  to  war  as  a  means  of  obtaining  it.  Attention 
was  first  directed  to  it  by  the  efforts  of  Benton  and 
Floyd  and  their  coadjutors  to  make  sure  of  Oregon, 
and  shortly  afterwards  interest  was  increased  by  the 
reports  of  traders  and  trappers,  who  brought  home 
impressive  accounts  of  California's  beauty  and 
riches.  Beginning  with  1822,  when  a  maritime 
trade  was  opened  between  Boston  and  Monterey,  a 
steady,  if  long  insignificant,  stream  of  immigration 
from  the  United  States  trickled  into  the  country. 
The  passage  of  the  Act  of  1830,  by  which  Mexico, 
for  the  special  purpose  of  checking  American 
immigration  into  Texas,  forbade  further  foreign 
colonization  of  her  border  provinces,  had  no  effect 
in  retarding  the  inflow  into  California.  The  local 
authorities,  always  jealous  of  the  central  Govern 
ment  and  enjoying  exceptional  freedom  of  action 


138    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

by  reason  of  their  remoteness  from  the  capital, 
welcomed  immigrants  as  cordially  as  before  and 
bestowed  on  them  generous  privileges  and  extensive 
land  grants. 

Thus,  had  it  not  been  that,  as  in  the  case  of  Oregon, 
the  American  people  felt  no  immediate  need  of 
crossing  the  Rocky  Mountains,  there  would  have  set 
in  a  movement  which,  given  the  continuance  of  a 
weak  and  divided  native  population,  would  probably 
have  resulted  in  the  speedy  Americanization  of  Cali 
fornia  and  its  absorption  into  the  United  States  in 
much  the  same  way  as  Texas.  As  it  was,  immigra 
tion  lagged  to  such  an  extent  that  in  1836,  or  about 
the  time  President  Jackson  made  an  effort  to  acquire 
by  purchase  at  least  a  part  of  California,  the  American 
population  aggregated  rather  less  than  three  hun 
dred;  and  ten  years  later,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
conquest,  it  was  still  scarcely  four  hundred  out  of  a 
total  population  of  between  eight  and  nine  thou 
sand.*  Of  the  Americans,  the  majority  were  lo 
cated  in  Monterey,  then  the  great  center  of  trade, 
and  on  ranches  in  the  Sacramento  Valley,  particu 
larly  in  the  neighborhood  of  New  Helvetia,  or  Sutter's 
Fort,  as  it  was  known  from  the  name  of  its  owner, 

*  These  estimates  are  based  on  figures  found  in  the  California  volumes 
of  Bancroft's  "History  of  the  Pacific  States  of  North  America,"  and  in 
Josiah  Royce's  "California." 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  139 

John  A.  Sutler,  the  wealthiest  ranchero  in  the  valley 
and  an  American  by  adoption  although  a  Swiss  by 
birth.  On  the  whole,  the  relations  between  the 
foreigners  and  the  natives  remained  friendly,  despite 
some  occasional  friction.  The  Calif ornians  them 
selves,  it  should  be  noted,  were  frequently  on  the 
verge  of  civil  war,  owing  to  the  constant  intrigues  of 
their  military  commander,  General  Jose  Castro,  to 
undermine  the  authority  of  the  civil  governor,  Pio 
Pico. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  President  Polk  made 
up  his  mind  that  the  acquisition  of  California  was 
not  merely  desirable  but  absolutely  necessary  to  the 
United  States.  In  reaching  this  decision  he  was  no 
doubt  influenced  to  a  considerable  extent  by  the 
wishes  of  his  fellow-Southerners,  who  had  been 
disappointed  by  the  admission  of  Texas  as  a  single 
State  instead  of  several  States,  and  felt  that,  if  the 
system  they  upheld  was  to  endure,  a  way  must  be 
found  to  obtain  additional  territory  open  to  slavery. 
But  there  also  is  reason  to  believe  that  Polk  looked 
at  the  subject  from  a  national  as  well  as  a  sectional 
point  of  view,  and  was  sincerely  persuaded  that 
unless  the  United  States  took  possession  of  California 
it  would,  in  its  weak  and  defenseless  condition,  in 
evitably  pass  from  the  ownership  of  Mexico  to  that 


140    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

of  some  foreign  Power.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
one  of  the  most  potent  factors  in  bringing  about  the 
annexation  of  Texas  was  the  fear  of  the  baneful 
influence  that  might  be  exercised  by  Great  Britain 
or  France  if  Texas  remained  an  independent  republic, 
rumor  crediting  the  Governments  of  those  countries 
with  sinister  designs  against  the  welfare  of  the  United 
States.  Similarly,  it  was  reported  that  both  Great 
Britain  and  France  were  only  awaiting  a  favorable 
opportunity  to  wrest  California  from  Mexico;  and 
such  was  the  excitement  created  by  this  report  that 
in  1842,  during  Tyler's  administration,  under  the 
belief  that  war  had  then  broken  out  between  Mexico 
and  the  United  States,  and  anxious  to  forestall  action 
by  any  other  power,  Commodore  Thomas  Ap  Catesby 
Jones,  of  the  American  navy,  sailed  to  Monterey 
with  a  squadron,  seized  the  port,  and  raised  the 
American  flag;  which  was,  however,  lowered  on  the 
discovery  that  peace  still  prevailed. 

Just  what  foundation  there  was  for  the  dread  of 
foreign  intervention  in  California  cannot  be  stated 
until  closer  research  shall  have  been  made  among 
the  archives  of  the  countries  chiefly  concerned. 
Certainly  the  activity  of  foreign  diplomats  and  the 
maneuvers  of  foreign  fleets  tended  to  give  color 
to  the  apprehensions  entertained  by  Polk  and  by 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  141 

Americans  of  all  sections.  Bearing  this  in  mind, 
and  remembering  likewise  the  expansionistic  ten 
dencies  of  the  time  and  the  anxiety  of  the  leaders  of 
the  slaveholding  States  to  strengthen  their  position 
against  the  increasing  power  of  the  non-slaveholding 
North,  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  resolution  taken 
by  the  President  and  his  advisers  to  insist  on  the 
cession  of  California  as  part  of  the  price  to  be  paid 
by  Mexico  if  she  would  avoid  a  war. 

To  this  end,  and  in  the  hope  that  Mexico  might 
yield  peaceably  what  otherwise  was  to  be  taken  from 
her  by  force,  Polk  despatched  John  Slidell,  of  New 
Orleans,  to  the  Mexican  capital,  several  months 
after  Mexico  had  severed  diplomatic  relations  with 
the  United  States  in  consequence  of  the  annexation 
of  Texas.  Slidell  went  as  a  minister  plenipotentiary, 
empowered  to  negotiate  concerning  all  difficulties 
between  the  two  Governments,  and  instructed  to 
exert  his  best  endeavors  in  conciliating  the  Mexicans. 
His  instructions  further  directed  him,  however,  to 
press  for  a  settlement  on  a  territorial  basis,  securing  a 
new  boundary  line  between  Mexico  and  the  United 
States,  which  should  give  the  latter  New  Mexico  and 
California  in  addition  to  Texas.  For  New  Mexico 
Slidell  was  authorized  to  offer  five  million  dollars 
and  the  assumption  by  the  United  States  Govern- 


142    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

ment  of  the  unpaid  damage  claims;  for  California 
he  was  authorized  to  offer  far  more  —  twenty-five 
million  dollars  if  the  line  should  be  drawn  so  as  to 
give  the  United  States  all  of  the  province  north  of 
and  including  Monterey,  and  twenty  million  dollars 
should  it  include  only  San  Francisco  and  the  country 
north  of  San  Francisco. 

What  answer  the  Mexican  Government  would 
have  returned  to  these  demands  is  impossible  to 
say.  For,  emboldened  by  the  popular  clamor  for 
war,  it  peremptorily  refused  to  receive  Slidell.  Nor 
did  he  profit  by  lingering  until,  with  almost  incredible 
fatuity,  the  Mexicans  so  far  forgot  their  common 
danger  as  to  indulge  in  a  revolution  and  establish  a 
new  Government.  Like  its  predecessor,  it  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  Slidell.  His  departure,  in 
March,  1846,  marked  the  end  of  negotiations.  In 
April  Mexican  troops  were  deliberately  provoked 
into  striking  the  first  blow,  and  in  May  war  was 
formally  declared  by  the  United  States  Congress. 
Before  the  end  of  summer  General  Stephen  W. 
Kearny  had  made  himself  master  of  New  Mexico 
and  was  hurriedly  marching  to  conquer  California. 
But  long  ere  Kearny 's  arrival  that  province  had 
been  practically  won  for  the  United  States,  by  means 
so  audacious  and  so  romantic  as  to  fasten  the  atten- 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  143 

tion  of  the  entire  nation  on  the  leading  actor  in  the 
conquest,  John  Charles  Fremont,  a  man  previously 
unheard  of  as  a  soldier  but  well  known  as  a  daring 
and  successful  explorer. 

Even  before  his  California  exploits  Fremont's 
career  had,  in  fact,  been  meteoric  and  spectacular. 
It  was,  too,  essentially  of  his  own  making.  Born  at 
Savannah  in  1813,  the  son  of  a  French  refugee  who 
had  married  into  one  of  the  best  families  of  Virginia, 
he  started  in  life  as  a  schoolmaster.  But  soon,  as 
the  result  perhaps  of  tendencies  inherited  from  his 
father,  who  was  of  a  venturesome  and  roving  dis 
position,  he  abandoned  teaching  in  favor  of  survey 
ing.  Such  was  the  ability  he  showed  that,  when 
barely  turned  twenty,  he  was  employed  by  the 
Federal  Government  to  make  a  railway  survey 
among  the  mountains  of  the  Carolinas  and  Ten 
nessee.  This  work  completed,  he  was  immediately 
appointed  to  assist  the  French  explorer  Nicollet,  who 
had  planned  an  expedition  to  the  headwaters  of  the 
Mississippi,  in  the  interests  of  geographical  science; 
and  about  the  same  time,  on  the  recommendation  of 
Joel  R.  Poinsett,  then  Secretary  of  War,  President 
Van  Buren  commissioned  him  to  a  lieutenancy  in 
the  corps  of  topographical  engineers. 

The  Nicollet  expedition  kept  Fremont  busily  en- 


144    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

gaged  through  the  years  1838  and  1839.  In  the 
following  year  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Thomas 
Hart  Benton,  who,  attracted  by  his  pleasing  per 
sonality  and  by  his  evident  enthusiasm  over  the 
prospects  of  the  new  West,  formed  a  strong  liking 
for  the  young  man.  A  frequent  visitor  to  Benton's 
house,  he  there  met  and  became  deeply  enamored 
of  Benton's  daughter  Jessie,  still  in  her  teens,  beau 
tiful,  imaginative,  proud,  and  ambitious.  She,  for 
her  part,  found  in  Fremont  the  ideal  of  her  dreams. 
Parental  opposition,  on  the  score  of  the  young  offi 
cer's  poverty  and  scant  prospect  of  advancement, 
only  strengthened  their  love,  and  after  a  stormy 
courtship  they  were  married  in  1841.  For  a  time 
Benton  raged.  Then  he  surrendered  at  discretion. 
And  presently  Fremont  was  in  the  wilderness  once 
more,  engaged  in  the  important  task  of  fixing  a 
direct  route  for  immigration  to  Oregon.  It  was 
a  project  dear  to  Benton's  heart,  and  a  splendid 
opportunity  for  Benton's  son-in-law.  So  well  did 
he  utilize  it  that,  after  a  summer  of  hardships  and 
achievements,  the  most  noteworthy  of  which  was 
the  hazardous  planting  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes  on  a 
sky-challenging  Rocky  Mountain  summit,  he  was 
hailed  as  among  the  greatest  of  modern  explorers. 
This  was  in  1842.  The  next  year  he  was  again 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMOXT 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  145 

at  the  head  of  an  exploring  expedition,  under  orders 
to  cross  the  Rockies  and  penetrate  through  Oregon 
to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  Outward  bound  all 
went  well,  but  on  his  way  home,  deceived  by  errone 
ous  reports  as  to  the  feasibility  of  the  route  he  had 
selected,  he  and  his  exhausted  followers  were  driven 
far  to  the  south  by  snow  and  storm  and  impassable 
mountains.  Unable  to  secure  a  guide,  they  wan 
dered  for  months  over  the  heights  and  through  the 
depths  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  finally  reaching  the 
Sacramento  Valley  after  terrific  sufferings  and  when 
hope  was  all  but  gone.  Here  they  were  hospitably 
received  by  the  generous  Sutter,  and  here  Fremont 
obtained  his  first  glimpse  of  the  glories  of  California. 
Now,  doubtless,  if  not  before,  he  began  to  dream  of 
finding  a  route  by  which  to  connect  this  western 
paradise  with  the  far-away  frontier  settlements  of 
his  own  country;  and  such  was  actually  one  of  the 
principal  objects  of  his  next  expedition,  begun  in  the 
autumn  of  1845,  but  cut  short  by  the  stirring  events 
of  the  conquest. 

As  has  been  said,  the  relations  between  the  Cali- 
fornians  and  the  American  settlers  in  California 
were  at  that  time  friendly.  But  there  was,  never 
theless,  a  well-grounded  fear  among  the  authorities 
that,  in  the  event  of  war  between  the  United  States 


146    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

and  Mexico,  California  would  be  the  first  point  of 
attack,  and  consequently,  so  far  as  their  resources 
and  mutual  jealousies  would  permit,  they  were  on 
the  alert  to  guard  against  a  surprise.  The  unex 
pected  appearance  of  Fremont  and  his  men  at 
Sutter's  Fort,  after  their  harrowing  experiences  in 
the  Sierras,  had  created  no  small  astonishment  and 
some  alarm;  and  when  it  was  rumored  that  he  was 
back  in  California  with  a  still  larger  following,  there 
was  much  speculation  as  to  the  purpose  of  his  com 
ing.  Fremont  himself,  though  with  only  a  small 
escort,  hastened  to  Monterey  to  explain  to  General 
Castro  that  his  expedition  was  purely  scientific  in 
character,  and  to  request  permission  to  enter  and 
explore  in  California;  after  which  he  brought  the 
remainder  of  his  party,  numbering  in  all  sixty-two 
backwoodsmen,  plainsmen,  voyageurs,  and  Indians, 
across  the  mountains  and  down  to  the  sea,  where  he 
went  into  camp  near  Monterey.  It  soon  became 
evident  that  he  had  no  immediate  intention  of  re 
newing  his  journey,  and  Castro,  in  a  panic,  de 
spatched  an  officer  to  inform  him  that,  in  compliance 
with  the  Mexican  law  against  the  admission  of 
foreigners,  he  must  withdraw  from  the  province. 

It  was  now  that  Fremont  gave  a  signal  display  of 
the  combined  daring  and  rashness  that  was  to  carry 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  147 

him  triumphantly  through  California  before  the 
year  was  out.  Instead  of  obeying  Castro's  order, 
or  at  most  remonstrating  in  diplomatic  language,  he 
returned  a  defiant  reply  and  proceeded  to  erect 
fortifications  on  the  summit  of  Gavilan  Peak,  on 
which  he  also  raised  the  American  flag.  All  Mon 
terey  and  the  region  round  about  was  at  once  thrown 
into  the  wildest  excitement.  Blustering  vehemently, 
and  calling  upon  the  citizens  to  unite  with  him  in 
defense  of  their  country,  Castro  quickly  organized 
an  army  to  expel  the  bold  intruders.  But  beyond 
marching  and  countermarching  in  full  view  of  the 
garrison  on  Gavilan  Peak  he  dared  not  go.  To 
storm  the  rude  fort  meant  the  ascent  of  a  precipitous 
height  guarded  by  sixty-two  well-armed  sharp 
shooters,  and  Castro,  unused  to  warfare  save  by 
proclamation,  had  no  fancy  to  make  the  attempt. 
Fortunately  for  the  valiant  Calif ornian,  Fremont  in 
a  few  days  realized  the  utter  illegality  of  his  position, 
and,  evacuating  his  defenses,  beat  a  leisurely  retreat, 
with  the  intention  of  resuming  his  Oregon  explora 
tions.  But,  on  the  very  border  of  Oregon,  he  was 
overtaken  by  a  United  States  army  officer,  Lieu 
tenant  Archibald  Gillespie,  the  bearer  of  important 
letters  from  Senator  Benton,  and  of  a  still  more 
important  secret  despatch  from  Secretary  of  State 


148    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Buchanan,  containing  information  and  instructions 
which  started  Fremont  and  his  men  southward  again, 
fast  as  they  could  march. 

The  exact  nature  of  the  instructions  thus  delivered 
in  the  heart  of  the  picturesque  California  wilderness 
has  been  debated  almost  as  vigorously  as  the  Mexican 
War  itself.  Fremont's  own  account,  long  accepted 
without  question,  asserts  that  he  was  distinctly 
authorized  to  take  whatever  measures  he  might 
deem  proper  to  secure  California  for  the  United 
States.  But  the  researches  of  recent  historians  of 
the  conquest,  notably  Hubert  Howe  Bancroft  and 
his  collaborators,  indicate  that  he  was  simply  directed 
to  keep  an  eye  on  the  progress  of  events,  and  co 
operate  with  United  States  Consul  Larkin,  of  Mon 
terey,  to  whom  also  Gillespie  had  brought  a  secret 
despatch  appointing  him  to  serve  as  a  confidential 
agent  of  the  United  States  in  promoting  annexa- 
tionistic  sentiments  among  the  native  population. 
Proceeding  on  this  view  of  the  case,  it  is  argued  that 
Fremont  acted  in  deliberate  disobedience  of  his 
orders,  that  the  course  he  pursued  hindered  rather 
than  helped  the  conquest,  and  that  on  him  must  be 
placed  the  responsibility  for  the  subsequent  ani 
mosity  between  the  victors  and  the  vanquished. 
That  he  disobeyed  orders  seems  borne  out  by  the 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  149 

facts  brought  to  light  of  late  years;  but,  at  all  events 
in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  the  other  accu 
sations  are  unwarranted. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  besides  appointing 
confidential  agents  with  instructions  to  confine  their 
efforts  to  the  cultivation  of  a  friendly  understanding 
with  the  Californians,  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  directed  Commodore  Sloat  to  take  possession 
of  the  ports  of  the  province  at  the  first  news  of  war 
with  Mexico,  and  further  ordered  General  Kearny 
to  march  an  army  overland  for  active  co-operation 
with  Sloat.  Now,  although  it  is  true  that  a  native 
faction  was  quite  willing  to  see  California  peacefully 
absorbed  by  the  United  States,  it  is  ridiculous  to 
suppose  that  the  secret  agents  could  have  so  man 
aged  affairs  that  the  population  as  a  whole  would 
feel  not  so  much  as  resentment  at  the  forcible  seizure 
of  their  country.  Some  degree  of  patriotism  must 
be  conceded  even  to  the  despised  Calif ornian.  And 
albeit  Fremont  began  the  fighting,  he  was  likewise 
the  first  to  attempt,  by  kindness,  moderation,  and 
generosity,  to  heal  the  wounds  inevitable  in  every 
conquest;  and  had  it  not  been  for  later  events  com 
pletely  beyond  his  control,  might  well  have  won 
additional  fame  as  a  pacificator.  As  to  the  charge 
that  he  hindered  rather  than  helped  the  conquest,  it 


150    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

need  only  be  said,  as  we  are  now  about  to  learn,  that 
it  was  his  boldness  of  action,  if  disobedience  of 
orders,  which  nerved  the  vacillating  Sloat  to  play  the 
role  assigned  to  him  by  the  authorities  at  Washington. 
Viewed  in  the  sober  light  of  historical  investigation, 
Fremont  undoubtedly  presents  a  less  heroic  appear 
ance  than  that  with  which  tradition  has  invested 
him.  But  he  still  remains  the  most  impressive  and 
the  most  attractive  figure  connected  with  the  con 
quest. 

His  meeting  with  Gillespie  took  place  on  the 
evening  of  May  9,  1846.  Within  little  more  than  a 
fortnight  he  was  back  in  the  Sacramento  Valley, 
where  he  found  the  American  settlers  greatly  dis 
turbed  by  reports  that  Castro  was  mustering  an 
army  to  expel  them  from  California.  Fremont's 
return  only  increased  the  excitement,  it  being  felt 
that  he  must  have  learned  that  the  lives  of  his  country 
men  were  in  danger.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  while 
Castro  was  probably  incensed  and  suspicious,  as  a 
result  not  merely  of  Fremont's  defiance  but  also  of 
the  rumored  plans  of  the  United  States  Government 
to  take  forcible  possession  of  California,  the  evidence 
indicates  that  he  did  not  contemplate  any  move 
against  the  Sacramento  Valley  Americans.  Such, 
none  the  less,  was  the  common  belief,  fortified,  too, 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  151 

by  the  posting  of  a  forged  proclamation  purporting 
to  come  from  him  and  ordering  all  foreigners  to 
leave  the  country.  Taking  counsel  of  their  fears, 
the  rancheros  consulted  with  Fremont,  who  prom 
ised  to  protect  them  if  attacked,  and  advised  them 
to  forestall  aggression  by  assuming  the  offensive  on 
their  own  account.  Thus  assured  of  armed  sup 
port,  a  band  of  settlers  sallied  forth  one  afternoon 
from  the  explorer's  camp,  and  at  sunrise  of  June  10 
surprised  a  company  of  Californians  in  charge  of  a 
number  of  horses  intended  for  Castro's  troops. 
Seizing  the  horses,  but  letting  their  escort  depart 
unharmed,  the  settlers  hurriedly  returned  to  advise 
with  Fremont  as  to  their  next  step. 

Events  now  moved  rapidly.  It  seemed  certain 
that,  whatever  his  earlier  purposes,  Castro  would 
take  the  field  against  the  budding  revolutionists,  and 
self-defense  required  action  which  would  render  it 
difficult  for  him  to  secure  a  foothold  north  of  San 
Francisco  Bay.  Accordingly,  while  Fremont  and 
his  followers  —  many  of  whom  begged  permission 
to  join  openly  in  the  movement  —  remained  in  camp, 
a  tiny  but  stout-hearted  army  of  thirty-three  settlers 
crossed  the  Sacramento  and  by  forced  marches 
reached  the  town  of  Sonoma  just  before  dawn  of 
June  14.  No  garrison  was  in  the  place,  the  inhabi- 


152    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

tants  were  asleep,  and  it  fell  without  a  shot.  Making 
prisoners  of  the  military  commandant  and  two  other 
officers,  and  locking  the  citizens  in  their  houses,  the 
Americans  promptly  proceeded  to  take  possession, 
hauling  down  the  Mexican  flag  and  substituting  in 
its  stead  an  improvised  standard  bearing  a  crude 
representation  of  a  grizzly  bear.  On  the  whole, 
order  was  well  maintained.  There  was  considerable 
drinking,  and  some  private  property  was  taken. 
But  there  was  nothing  like  systematic  looting,  and 
the  Calif ornians  were  in  no  way  molested,  being  soon 
released  and  permitted  to  follow  their  ordinary 
occupations. 

The  ease  with  which  success  was  gained  and  the 
braggart  language  used  by  some  of  the  leaders  have 
led  certain  historians  to  belittle  the  "Bear  Flag" 
revolt,  as  it  is  known,  and  to  refer  in  contemptuous 
terms  to  those  who  participated  in  it.  Yet  it  was  in 
reality  a  singularly  bold  and  venturesome  enterprise, 
carried  through  with  a  dash  and  a  vim  that  compel 
admiration  notwithstanding  the  feebleness  of  the 
opposition  actually  encountered.  That  the  opposi 
tion  was  feeble  was  due  not  to  the  cowardice  of  the 
Californians  as  a  race  —  at  San  Pascual  they  showed 
well  enough  that  they  would  fight  —  but  to  the 
incapacity,  and  worse,  of  their  commanders,  and 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  153 

in  especial  of  their  Commander-in-Chief,  General 
Castro.  At  the  first  news  of  the  rising,  Castro  had 
fallen  into  a  fine  frenzy  and  had  declared  his  intention 
of  subduing  the  revolutionists  with  a  ruthless  hand. 
But,  in  place  of  immediately  marching  against  them, 
he  lingered  for  some  days  to  observe  the  time-honored 
custom  of  issuing  martial  and  patriotic  proclama 
tions.  And  when  he  laid  aside  the  pen  in  favor  of 
the  sword,  he  led  his  forces  not  northward  to  Sonoma 
but  southward  to  San  Juan,  whence  he  sent  frantic 
appeals  to  Governor  Pico  to  forget  past  animosities 
and  join  with  him  in  crushing  the  army  of  thirty- 
three  —  now,  to  be  sure,  somewhat  augmented  by 
reinforcements  from  outlying  ranches  of  the  Sacra 
mento.  His  one  really  warlike  move  was  to  send  a 
detachment  across  San  Francisco  Bay  under  the 
command  of  a  Colonel  Torre,  who,  June  23,  came 
into  contact  with  a  force  of  revolutionists  and  after  a 
single  exchange  of  volleys  retreated  with  a  loss  of 
two  men  killed  and  several  wounded.  Two  days 
later  Fremont,  aroused  by  the  news  of  Torre's  com 
ing,  was  at  Sonoma  with  his  plainsmen,  and  hence 
forth  was  openly  in  charge  of  the  revolution;  winning 
no  immediate  renown,  however,  other  than  that 
arising  from  his  capture  of  an  abandoned  fort  on  the 
site  of  the  present  San  Francisco,  and  from  an 


154    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

unsuccessful  pursuit  of  Torre,  who  made  good  his 
escape  to  the  southern  side  of  the  bay. 

Meantime  Commodore  Sloat,  cruising  off  the 
coast  with  his  squadron,  was  painfully  pondering 
the  problem  whether  or  not  to  obey  orders  and  seize 
the  California  ports.  News  of  the  first  collision 
between  American  and  Mexican  troops  had  reached 
him  as  early  as  May  17,  but,  despite  the  urgings  of 
his  subordinate  officers,  he  could  not,  such  was  his 
extreme  caution,  bring  himself  to  adopt  the  course 
mapped  out  at  Washington.  Finally,  July  2,  he 
sailed  into  Monterey  Harbor,  followed  shortly  after 
wards  by  a  British  fleet  under  the  command  of 
Admiral  Sir  George  F.  Seymour,  who  had  been 
watching  his  movements,  not,  probably,  with  a  view 
to  checkmate  him  in  California,  but  to  be  ready  for 
instant  action  in  case  the  Oregon  controversy  should 
result  in  war  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain.  At  Monterey  Sloat  heard  for  the  first  time 
of  Fremont's  operations  in  the  north,  and  not  un 
naturally  leaped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  explorer 
was  acting  under  specific  orders.  Thus  encouraged, 
though  still  somewhat  fearful  for  the  consequences, 
he  seized  Monterey  July  7,  without  meeting  any 
opposition  —  Castro  fleeing  further  south  so  soon 
as  the  tidings  were  brought  him  —  and  sent  word  to 


£3 

5  § 
S  a 

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o 

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JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  155 

Fremont  to  join  him  immediately.  Fremont  by  that 
time  had  left  Sonoma  —  where  the  Bear  flag  now 
gave  place  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes  —  and  was  back 
at  his  camp  in  the  Sacramento  Valley.  But  he  lost 
not  a  moment  in  starting  for  Monterey  with  his 
command  and  a  number  of  the  whilom  revolution 
ists.  The  impression  the  party  made  as  they  swept 
into  the  quiet  streets  of  the  quaint  old  California 
seaport  has  been  well  described  in  a  passage  which 
deserves  quotation  for  the  vivid  view  it  affords  of  the 
men  who  were  the  backbone  of  the  conquest.  It  is 
taken  from  Frederick  Walpole's  "Four  Years  in  the 
Pacific,"  a  work  by  a  British  naval  officer  who  was 
with  Seymour  at  Monterey. 

"A  vast  cloud  of  dust  appeared  first,"  writes  Wai- 
pole,  "and  thence  in  long  file  emerged  this  wildest 
wild  party.  Fremont  rode  ahead  —  a  spare,  active- 
looking  man,  with  such  an  eye !  He  was  dressed  in  a 
blouse  and  leggings,  and  wore  a  felt  hat.  After  him 
came  five  Delaware  Indians,  who  were  his  body 
guard,  and  have  been  with  him  through  all  his 
wanderings;  they  had  charge  of  the  baggage  horses. 
The  rest,  many  of  them  blacker  than  the  Indians, 
rode  two  and  two,  the  rifle  held  by  one  hand  across 
the  pommel  of  the  saddle.  Thirty-nine  of  them  are 
his  regular  men,  the  rest  are  loafers  picked  up  lately; 


156    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

his  original  men  are  principally  backwoodsmen  from 
the  State  of  Tennessee  and  the  banks  of  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Missouri.  .  .  .  The  dress  of  these  men 
was  principally  a  long,  loose  coat  of  deerskin,  tied 
with  thongs  in  front;  trousers  of  the  same,  of  their 
own  manufacture,  which,  when  wet  through,  they 
take  off,  scrape  well  inside  with  a  knife,  and  put  on 
as  soon  as  dry;  the  saddles  were  of  various  fashions, 
though  these  and  a  large  drove  of  horses,  and  a 
brass  field-gun,  were  things  they  had  picked  up 
about  California.  They  are  allowed  no  liquor,  tea 
and  sugar  only;  this,  no  doubt,  has  much  to  do  with 
their  good  conduct;  and  the  discipline,  too,  is  very 
strict. " 

Good  fighting  material,  this,  and  commanded  by  a 
man  who  well  knew  its  worth  and  was  eager  to 
utilize  it.  But  to  Fremont's  request  that  Sloat 
enlist  his  "Bear  Flag  Battalion"  as  part  of  the 
United  States  forces  for  the  completion  of  the  con 
quest,  the  Commodore  returned  a  wrathful  refusal. 
He  had  learned  by  now  that  Fremont's  earlier 
actions  had  been  based  only  on  blanket  instructions, 
were,  it  might  be,  contrary  to  instructions,  and  he 
bitterly  reproached  the  explorer  with  having  led  him 
into  an  embarrassing  situation.  So  great,  in  fact, 
was  his  confusion  and  anxiety  that  he  sailed  for 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  157 

home  to  explain  matters,  turning  the  squadron  over 
to  Commodore  R.  F.  Stockton,  who  had  chanced  to 
arrive  from  Hawaii  about  the  time  Fremont  made 
his  dramatic  entrance  into  Monterey.  And  in 
Stockton  Fremont  found  both  a  friend  and  an 
ally  who  shared  his  views  as  to  the  necessity 
for  energetic  action.  Constituting  the  "Bears"  a 
volunteer  battalion  in  the  United  States  army, 
with  Fremont  at  its  head  as  major,  and  Gillespie 
assisting  him  as  captain,  Stockton  decided  on 
a  campaign  which  had  as  chief  objective  the  cap 
ture  of  the  California  capital,  Los  Angeles,  where 
General  Castro  and  Governor  Pico  had  at  last 
united  forces. 

Sailing  from  Monterey  July  26,  Fremont  and  his 
men  three  days  later  reached  San  Diego,  in  the 
extreme  south  of  California,  raised  the  American 
flag,  and,  after  leaving  a  garrison  in  the  town,  started 
to  march  north  to  Los  Angeles,  where  they  were  to 
meet  Stockton  and  join  in  a  combined  assault. 
Stockton,  meanwhile,  took  a  force  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty  marines  and  sailors  from  Monterey  to 
Santa  Barbara,  where  the  flag-raising  formality  was 
duly  observed,  and  from  Santa  Barbara  proceeded 
to  San  Pedro,  a  coastal  town  just  south  of  Los 
Angeles.  From  San  Pedro,  after  a  few  days  spent 


158    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

in  drilling  the  seamen  in  the  rudiments  of  land  war 
fare,  the  advance  to  the  capital  was  begun. 

Castro,  unready  as  ever,  let  it  be  known  at  this 
juncture  that  he  would  like  to  negotiate  with  the 
invaders.  To  his  dismay  he  found  them  in  no 
mood  for  negotiation.  For  at  least  this  once,  there 
fore,  he  reached  a  quick  decision,  sending  to  Governor 
Pico  a  long  despatch  in  which  he  explained  that  he 
was  about  to  disband  his  army  and  go  to  Mexico 
in  order  to  report  the  situation  to  the  central  authori 
ties.  He  should,  he  added,  be  pleased  to  have  the 
Governor  as  a  traveling  companion  on  the  long 
journey,  an  invitation  which  fell  in  so  well  with 
Pico's  own  desires  that  the  unworthy  pair  were  soon 
in  full  flight  across  the  border.  The  California 
Legislative  Assembly,  then  in  session,  likewise 
adjourned  sine  die,  the  members  seeking  safety  by 
a  hasty  retreat.  Without  leaders  and  without  troops, 
the  people  of  Los  Angeles  had  no  alternative  but  to 
submit. 

August  13,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  Fre 
mont's  and  Stockton's  combined  forces  entered  the 
city  with  flags  flying  and  drums  beating.  As  always, 
they  maintained  excellent  discipline,  and  this,  to 
gether  with  the  encouraging  strains  of  a  brass  band 
which  gave  a  concert  in  the  evening,  reassured  the 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  159 

citizens  to  a  considerable  extent.  Some  progress, 
though  more  apparent  than  real,  in  re-establishing 
friendly  relations  was  also  effected  by  a  tour  of  con 
ciliation  which  Fremont  made  through  the  sur 
rounding  country.  By  the  practice  of  making 
prisoners  and  then  releasing  them  on  parole,  it  was 
hoped  to  secure  further  sureties  for  future  peace; 
but  it  soon  became  evident  that  the  installation  of  a 
garrison  would  be  necessary,  and  for  this  work 
Stockton  detailed  Gillespie  and  fifty  men.  About 
the  same  time  he  appointed  Fremont  military  com 
mandant  of  all  California,  and  then,  September  5, 
sailed  for  Monterey  with  the  greater  part  of  the 
troops.  Three  days  afterwards  Fremont  followed 
him  to  establish  headquarters  in  the  genial  valley 
of  the  Sacramento. 

The  conquest  now  seemed  complete.  But  there 
were  patriots  among  the  Calif ornians,  and,  freed 
from  the  deadening  influence  of  Castro  and  Pico,  a 
few  bold  souls  began  to  concert  measures  to  win 
back  the  province.  Chief  among  these  was  a  paroled 
officer  named  Flores,  who,  regardless  of  the  fact  that 
he  had  given  his  word  not  to  take  up  arms  against 
the  United  States,  before  long  had  a  following  suffi 
ciently  strong  to  enable  him  to  lay  a  successful  siege 
to  Los  Angeles  and  expel  Gillespie,  who  was  forced 


160    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

to  capitulate  and  retire  to  Monterey.  A  little  later 
the  Californians  reoccupied  Santa  Barbara  and  San 
Diego,  and,  October  4,  defeated  a  force  which  Stock 
ton  had  sent  against  them.  Then  began  a  guerrilla 
warfare,  as  difficult  for  the  Americans  to  repress  as 
it  was  unprofitable  for  the  Californians  to  pursue. 

Fremont,  at  the  first  intimation  of  the  attack  on 
Gillespie,  had  hastened  to  Monterey  —  where,  by 
the  way,  he  found  awaiting  him  a  commission  as 
lieutenant-colonel  in  the  United  States  army  —  and 
thence  to  Santa  Barbara  by  water,  intending  to 
procure  horses  and  gallop  to  Gillespie's  relief.  But 
no  horses  were  to  be  had,  and  reluctantly  he  was 
compelled  to  return  to  Monterey,  at  which  place  the 
defeated  Gillespie  had  in  the  meantime  arrived. 
With  the  greatest  energy  Fremont  now  began  to 
raise  an  army,  and  early  in  November  was  at  the 
head  of  a  motley  —  but,  for  the  work  in  hand,  ex 
ceedingly  effective  —  force  of  five  hundred  plains 
men,  settlers,  recently  arrived  immigrants,  and  native 
Indians.  With  these  he  took  the  field,  ridding 
North  California  of  the  enemy,  and  starting  south 
to  join  Stockton,  who  was  operating  about  the 
capital. 

It  was  during  this  march  that  an  incident  occurred 
of  which  his  biographers  have  deservedly  made 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  161 

much.  Jesus  Pico,  a  brother  of  the  fugitive  gov 
ernor,  had  joined  the  insurrectionists  in  violation  of 
his  parole,  and  on  being  captured  was  tried  by  a 
court  martial  and  sentenced  to  death.  This  sen 
tence  Fremont  approved;  but,  an  hour  before  the 
time  set  for  the  execution,  moved  by  the  prayers  and 
lamentations  of  Pico's  wife  and  children,  he  granted 
the  condemned  a  full  pardon.  Pico  (if  we  are  at 
liberty  to  accept  the  traditional  account)  "  flung 
himself  with  unrestrained  emotion,  before  Colonel 
Fremont,  clasped  his  knees,  swore  eternal  fidelity, 
and  begged  the  privilege  of  fighting  and  dying  for 
him."  *  This  may  be  putting  the  case  over-strongly; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  henceforth  Pico  and  Pico's 
friends  were  sincerely  attached  to  Fremont,  and  that 
by  many  other,  if  less  sensational,  acts  of  clemency 
and  kindness  Fremont  did  much  to  gain  for  his 
countrymen  the  confidence  and  good-will  of  the 
beaten  Californians. 

As  yet,  however,  the  Californians  had  still  to  ac 
knowledge  defeat,  and  Fremont's  efforts  were  chiefly 
directed  to  their  subjugation.  But  so  elusive  were 
they  that  he  could  never  close  with  them  in  anything 
like  a  regular  engagement.  That  fortune  was 

*C.  W.  Upham's  "The  Life,  Explorations,  and  Public  Services  of 
John  Charles  Fremont,"  p.  248. 


i62    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

reserved  for  another  American  commander,  with 
results  by  no  means  redounding  to  the  prestige  of 
American  arms.  General  Stephen  W.  Kearny,  the 
reader  will  recall,  had  occupied  New  Mexico  in 
August,  and  had  set  out  on  the  long  overland  journey 
to  California  with  the  intention  of  similarly  occupy 
ing  that  province,  the  conquest  of  which  by  Stockton 
and  Fremont  was  quite  unknown  to  him.  Early  in 
October  he  met  a  messenger  *  hurrying  from  Cali 
fornia  to  Washington  with  a  report  of  the  conquest, 
and  on  being  told  that  the  Californians  had  sub 
mitted  without  the  slightest  resistance,  and  were  a 
race  of  cowards,  he  sent  most  of  his  force  back  to 
Santa  Fe,  continuing  his  journey  with  only  one 
hundred  dragoons.  Nothing  untoward  occurred 
until  the  long  and  dreary  march  was  almost  at  its 
end,  when  Kearny  found  his  progress  blocked  by  a 
numerous,  active,  and  most  troublesome  foe. 

While  debating  the  best  course  to  pursue,  he  was 
joined  by  Gillespie  and  forty  men,  sent  by  Stockton 
to  reinforce  him;  and  it  was  then  decided  to  attack 
the  Californians,  who  had  taken  up  a  strong  position 
in  the  mountain  village  of  San  Pascual.  Badly 
planned,  and  fought  by  travel-exhausted  men,  it 

*  The  messenger  was  no  other  than  the  celebrated  Western  guide  and 
scout,  Kit  Carson,  who  had  been  associated  with  Fremont  in  all  of  his 
explorations,  and  to  whom  in  no  small  measure  their  success  was  due. 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  163 

would  be  charitable  to  Kearny  to  describe  the  re 
sultant  engagement  as  a  drawn  battle.  He  lost 
seventeen  killed  and  eighteen  wounded,  the  enemy 
withdrew  and  continued  to  harass  him,  and  he  was 
soon  in  a  most  dangerous  situation,  from  which  he 
was  extricated  only  by  the  timely  arrival  of  another 
body  of  troops  from  Stockton.  Thus  reinforced, 
he  pushed  painfully  on,  uniting  with  Stockton  at 
San  Diego  late  in  December,  and  before  the  end  of 
the  month  advancing  with  him  against  Los  Angeles, 
which  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the  Californians. 

All  this  time  Fremont  and  his  five  hundred  volun 
teers  were  approaching  the  same  city  from  the  north, 
encountering  no  opposition,  but  suffering  terribly 
from  cold  and  storms.  Christmas  Day  they  crossed 
the  Santa  Inez  mountains  in  a  blizzard,  reaching 
Santa  Barbara  a  couple  of  days  afterwards,  and 
early  in  the  new  year  resuming  their  march  to  Los 
Angeles.  But  before  they  arrived  there  they  were 
met  by  two  Californians  who  told  them  that  Stockton 
and  Kearny,  after  a  skirmish  on  the  banks  of  the 
San  Gabriel  River,  had  entered  the  capital  in  tri 
umph  ;  and  the  next  day  two  of  the  insurgent  leaders 
came  into  Fremont's  camp  to  treat  for  peace.  Terms 
of  capitulation  were  speedily  arranged,  Fremont, 
with  a  generosity  as  politic  as  it  was  conspicuous, 


164    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

overlooking  the  broken  paroles  and  extending  a 
general  amnesty.  This  marked  the  end  of  the  war, 
and  the  definite  establishment  of  American  authority 
in  California.  With  its  unpleasant  sequel,  the 
quarrel  between  Kearny  and  Stockton  over  the 
question  of  whom  should  exercise  supreme  authority, 
and  the  court-martialing  of  Fremont  on  charges  of 
disobedience  preferred  by  Kearny,  we  need  not 
concern  ourselves. 

But  it  is  important,  in  closing,  to  make  clear  the 
territorial  consequences  of  the  conquest  and  of  the 
success  of  American  arms  in  Mexico.  There,  owing 
to  the  desperate  valor  of  the  Mexicans,  the  struggle 
lasted  until  the  fall  of  1847,  and  it  was  not  until 
February,  1848,  that  a  treaty  of  peace  was  actually 
signed.  By  its  provisions  the  United  States  gained 
all  that  Polk  had  determined  upon,  and  Mexico 
only  a  fraction  of  the  pecuniary  compensation  pre 
viously  offered  —  fifteen  million  dollars,  and  the 
assumption  by  the  United  States  of  the  unpaid 
claims,  in  exchange  for  the  vast  area  out  of  which 
have  since  been  created  the  States  of  California, 
Nevada,  and  Utah,  and  parts  of  Arizona,  New 
Mexico,  and  Colorado.  Five  years  later,  however, 
another  ten  millions  were  paid  for  a  further  read 
justment  of  the  boundary,  adding  a  scant  forty-five 


JOHN  CHARLES  FREMONT  165 

thousand  square  miles  to  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  in  southern  Arizona.  The  Gadsden  Pur 
chase,  as  this  is  known,  marked  the  last  step  in  the 
American  advance,  so  far  as  related  to  territory 
adjacent  to  the  Republic. 


CHAPTER  VII 

WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  AND  THE  ALASKA  CESSION 

IN  studying  the  territorial  growth  of  the  United 
States,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  remind  the  reader, 
the  most  conspicuous  fact  hitherto  encountered  has 
been  the  inevitability  of  the  different  acquisitions. 
The  first  migratory  movement  —  the  movement 
across  the  Alleghanies,  following  necessarily  from 
economic  stress  and  the  genesis  of  a  bold,  enterpris 
ing,  and  restless  people  —  was  certain  soon  or  late 
to  give  rise  to  a  struggle  for  mastery  of  the  Mississippi, 
the  great  mid-continent  waterway.  In  good  season 
a  peaceful  solution  for  the  problem  thus  created  was 
found  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  transferring  from 
the  French  to  the  American  nation  not  only  the 
Mississippi  but  also  the  enormous  area  to  the  west 
ward  watered  by  the  Mississippi  and  its  affluents. 
Then,  and  equally  of  necessity,  was  presented  the 
question  of  acquiring  the  one  piece  of  territory  to  the 
east  of  the  Mississippi  still  held  by  alien  hands, 
and  constituting  a  serious  menace  to  the  welfare  of 
the  United  States.  This,  again,  was  happily  settled 

1 66 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  167 

by  the  Florida  Purchase,  though  only  after  the  use 
of  intimidative  methods,  amply  justified,  however, 
by  the  principle  of  self-defense  and  self-preservation. 
Texas  came  next,  an  acquisition  not  in  itself 
necessarily  inevitable,  but  rendered  so  by  the  stu 
pendous  folly  of  the  Mexican  authorities  in  permit 
ting  the  colonization  of  that  outlying  and  practically 
unoccupied  province  by  the  representatives  of  an 
adjacent  nation  stronger  than  theirs  and  differing 
from  theirs  in  race,  institutions,  and  points  of  view. 
When  the  inevitable  conflict  arose,  the  national 
instinct  for  expansion  was,  as  has  been  shown, 
powerfully  reinforced  by  a  sectional  desire,  and 
Texas,  though  not  without  a  severe  struggle,  became 
a  part  of  the  American  Republic.  Meantime,  and 
likewise  under  the  secondary  stimulus  of  sectional 
interests,  agitation  had  begun  looking  to  anticipa 
tion  of  the  inevitable  by  carrying  the  westward 
movement  still  further  forward  —  across  the  Rocky 
Mountains  and  down  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific. 
As  yet  the  nation  had  not  fully  entered  into  its  own, 
and  vast  expanses  of  internal  territory  were  still  to 
be  occupied  before  a  second  transmontane  migration 
would  become  necessary;  but  there  were  certain 
impatient  souls  who,  rightly  enough,  urged  that 
action  should  not  wait  on  necessity.  The  outcome 


i68    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

of  their  urging  was,  on  the  one  hand,  the  occupation 
of  Oregon,  to  which  the  United  States  was  rightfully 
entitled,  and,  on  the  other,  the  seizure  of  California, 
to  which  she  had  no  title  at  all,  but  which  in  the 
course  of  time,  given  a  continuance  of  the  conditions 
then  existing  in  that  remote  section  of  Mexico, 
would  almost  certainly  have  accrued  to  her  by  force 
of  "silent  immigration. "  In  any  event,  the  acquisi 
tion  of  California  speedily  became  an  established 
fact,  and  with  it  the  " manifest  destiny"  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  to  pass  from  sea  to  sea,  and  to  assume 
headship  in  the  western  hemisphere,  found  fulfil 
ment. 

Nor,  with  the  instinct  for  expansion  thus  strength 
ened  and  quickened  by  the  unparalleled  success 
and  rapidity  of  the  transcontinental  movement,  was 
it  reasonable  to  expect  that  no  further  effort  would 
be  made  to  extend  the  dominions  of  the  United 
States.  On  the  contrary,  everything  pointed  to 
such  additional  effort;  with  this  difference,  that 
while  it  had  hitherto  been  comparatively  easy  to 
map  out  in  advance  the  successive  steps  taken,  it 
was  impossible  longer  to  predict  in  just  what  quarter 
future  acquisitions  would  be  found.  That,  clearly, 
would  depend  altogether  upon  new  needs  and  wisely 
grasped  opportunities,  the  element  of  inevitability 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  169 

remaining  only  so  far  as  concerned  the  certainty 
that  the  nation  would  not  rest  content  with  what 
had  already  been  obtained.  There  were,  of  course, 
those  who  essayed  the  prophet's  role,  variously 
indicating  Mexico,  the  West  Indies,  Canada,  and 
even  mid-Pacific  and  trans-Pacific  territories  as  the 
next  to  be  absorbed  in  the  growth  of  the  United 
States.  But  few  were  prepared  for  what  actually 
occurred  —  the  acquisition  by  purchase  of  the  region 
in  the  extreme  northwest  known  as  Russian  America. 
Remote,  difficult  of  access,  and  generally  believed 
to  be  worthless  and  uninhabitable,  this  was  regarded 
by  most  Americans  of  the  time  as  the  least  desirable 
of  all  possible  territorial  additions.  Yet,  thanks  to 
the  foresight,  energy,  and  enthusiasm  of  a  true 
statesman,  William  Henry  Seward,  it  was  the  first 
to  follow  the  Mexican  Cession  and  the  Gadsden 
Purchase. 

Seward,  for  his  part,  occupies  a  unique  place  in 
the  story  of  American  expansion.  The  acquisition 
of  Russian  America  is  more  directly  attributable  to 
him  than  is  any  other  acquisition  to  the  moving 
spirit  most  closely  associated  with  it.  And,  unlike 
the  others  in  our  gallery,  he  was  not  born  and  brought 
up  in  an  atmosphere  peculiarly  favorable  to  the 
development  of  expansionistic  sentiments,  but  was, 


170    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

on  the  contrary,  distinctly  a  self-made  expansionist. 
His  early  years  were  spent  on  a  farm  in  New  York 
State,  where  he  enjoyed  few  educational  or  other 
broadening  advantages;  and  thereafter,  until  well 
past  the  age  of  forty,  his  interests  were  essentially 
State  interests,  although  the  eminence  he  rapidly 
attained  in  the  councils  of  the  Whig  party,  which 
he  joined  on  its  formation  in  1832,  inevitably  widened 
his  outlook.  When,  however,  he  began  seriously 
to  consider  the  future  of  the  United  States  as  a 
territorial  as  well  as  a  political  entity,  the  heritage 
of  a  naturally  exuberant  imagination,  together  with 
the  influence  of  the  teachings  of  his  first  political 
idol,  John  Quincy  Adams,  made  itself  felt  and 
he  promptly  ranged  himself  among  the  adherents 
of  the  Jefferson-Adams- Jackson-Benton  school  of 
aggrandizement.  On  only  one  important  point  did 
he  differ  from  them  —  stoutly  opposing  territorial 
growth  by  the  aid  of  military  conquest.  "I  want  no 
enlargement  of  territory,"  he  once  wrote,  "sooner 
than  it  would  come  if  we  were  content  with  a  masterly 
inactivity.  I  abhor  war,  as  I  detest  slavery.  I 
would  not  give  one  human  life  for  all  the  continent 
that  remains  to  be  annexed."* 

*  George  E.  Baker's  edition  of  "The  Works  of  William  H.  Seward," 
vol.  Ill,  p.  409. 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEXVARD 
From  a  photograph  loaned  by  his  son,  Frederick  W.  Seward. 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  171 

With  this  reservation,  not  one  among  the  many 
apostles  of  the  doctrine  of  " manifest  destiny," 
whose  voices  were  so  loudly  raised  in  the  years 
immediately  preceding  the  acquisition  of  Texas, 
Oregon,  and  California,  surpassed  Seward  in  preach 
ing  territorial  expansion.  With  Jefferson,  he 
"  viewed  the  Confederacy  as  the  nest  from  which 
all  America,  North  and  South,  is  to  be  peopled." 
With  Benton,  he  beheld  the  American  people  con 
tinuing  their  westward  movement  until  they  had 
fairly  established  themselves  on  the  Asiatic  shores 
of  the  Pacific.  At  one  time,  in  imagination,  he 
located  the  "ultimate  capital,"  of  the  United  States 
in  the  "  valley  of  Mexico,"  where  "the  glories  of  the 
Aztec  capital  would  be  renewed."  And  even  when 
he  "corrected  this  view,"  possibly  from  a  growing 
distrust  of  the  advantages  to  be  gained  from  absorp 
tion  of  the  restless  and  unruly  Latin-American 
republics,  Seward  still  placed  the  "future  and  ulti 
mate  central  seat  of  power"  in  such  a  quarter - 
"at  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  Mississippi  River 
and  on  the  great  Mediterranean  lakes"  -as  to 
indicate  his  belief  that  the  Stars  and  Stripes  would 
one  day  wave  over  the  entire  continent  from  the 
frozen  Arctic  to  the  tropical  Caribbean.* 

*  Baker's  Edition,  vol.  IV,  pp.  331-32. 


172    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Nor  did  he  exhaust  his  expansionistic  sentiments 
in  flamboyant  generalities  and  high-sounding  pre 
dictions.  To  the  best  of  his  ability,  and  perhaps 
more  earnestly  than  any  other  builder  of  the  pro 
spective  American  Empire,  he  toiled  to  make  his 
dreams  come  true.  When  he  was  first  in  a  position 
to  turn  his  energies  in  this  direction  —  with  his 
election  to  the  United  States  Senate  in  1849  ~  tne 
growing  contest  over  slavery  claimed  and  held  his 
attention,  to  continue  uppermost  in  his  heart  and 
mind  until  Appomattox  brought  it  to  its  dramatic 
close.  Then,  as  Secretary  of  State  under  President 
Johnson,  he  hastened  to  promote  his  darling  project 
of  creating  a  greater  America  than  even  that  which 
had  been  born  of  the  irresistible  sweep  to  the  Pacific. 
All  over  the  world  he  cast  his  eye,  seeking  here  and 
seeking  there  for  territory  which  the  United  Sattes 
might  advantageously  possess. 

He  had  all  the  fire,  one  might  almost  say  the 
recklessness,  of  the  true  enthusiast.  Besides  Russian 
America,  the  concrete  additions  which  he  endeavored 
to  make  included  Hawaii,  Cuba,  Hayti,  San  Do 
mingo,  and  the  Danish  West  Indian  Islands  of  St. 
John  and  St.  Thomas.  It  was  even  reported  that 
he  had  it  in  mind  to  annex  a  part  of  China ;  and  that 
this  rumor  did  not  altogether  do  him  injustice  is  evi- 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  173 

dent  from  a  letter  he  wrote  to  Cassius  M.  Clay. 
"Russia  and  the  United  States,"  he  warned  Clay, 
"may  remain  good  friends  until,  each  having  made 
a  circuit  of  half  the  globe  in  opposite  directions,  they 
shall  meet  and  greet  each  other  in  regions  where 
civilization  first  began,  and  where,  after  so  many 
ages,  it  has  become  now  lethargic  and  helpless."* 
With  respect  to  the  Danish  islands  he  actually 
succeeded  in  negotiating  a  treaty  of  cession,  but 
this  failed  of  ratification  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  chiefly  owing  to  Congressional  animosity 
to  the  Johnson  administration.  The  same  influence 
played  a  part  in  paralyzing  his  other  efforts,  and  to 
such  an  extent  that,  for  all  his  ambition  and  high 
hopes,  when  he  stepped  out  of  office  he  could  boast 
of  but  one  territorial  achievement  —  and  that  an 
achievement  held  in  scorn  and  derision  by  the  vast 
majority  of  his  fellow-countrymen.  To-day,  time 
having  proved  that  Seward  was  right  and  the  nation 
wrong,  it  stands  as  an  enduring  monument  to  his 
fame. 

He  did  not,  however,  originate  the  idea  of  acquir 
ing  Alaska.  That  was  broached  as  early  as  the 
Oregon  debates  of  1846,  with  the  suggestion  that, 
by  insisting  on  possession  of  the  whole  of  Oregon, 

*  F.  Bancroft's  "Life  of  William  H.  Seward,"  vol.  II,  p.  472. 


i74    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

and  persuading  Russia  to  sell  her  territory  in  the 
north,  the  United  States  would  secure  an  unbroken 
coast-line  from  the  Arctic  to  California.  Tradition 
has  it  that  the  Russian  Government  was  at  that 
time  approached  on  the  subject.  Certainly  a  few 
years  later  a  definite  offer  of  five  million  dollars  was 
made  in  an  informal  way  by  Senator  Gwin,  of  Cali 
fornia.  G  win's  proposal  elicited  the  interesting 
information  that,  while  the  Czar's  Government 
deemed  the  sum  named  too  low  for  consideration, 
it  would  be  willing  to  open  negotiations  so  soon  as 
the  Russian  Minister  of  Finance  could  look  into  the 
question.  But  nothing  was  done  at  the  time,  and, 
the  Civil  War  soon  following,  the  fact  that  tentative 
steps  had  been  taken  was  quite  forgotten  until 
chance  directed  Seward's  attention  to  Alaska  in 
1866. 

For  years  there  had  been  friction  between  Russian 
and  American  traders  and  fishermen,  owing  to  the 
monopoly  exercised  by  the  Russian  Fur  Company 
over  the  waters  as  well  as  the  lands  of  the  North 
Pacific.  This  company  was  organized  in  1799  as  a 
means  of  developing  and  exploiting  the  colonial 
territories  which  Russia  had  acquired  in  America 
by  virtue  of  Bering's  discoveries  in  1741  and  subse 
quent  exploration,  occupation,  and  conquest.  Be- 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  175 

sides  full  commercial  privileges,  the  Russian  Govern 
ment  granted  it  such  extensive  administrative  rights 
that  it  enjoyed  practically  sovereign  authority  within 
the  sphere  of  its  operations,  a  power  which  it  wielded 
with  extreme  cruelty  to  the  native  inhabitants  and 
singular  harshness  and  arrogance  to  the  representa 
tives  of  other  civilized  nations.  Tempted,  never 
theless,  by  the  hope  of  winning  golden  profit,  foreign 
merchantmen  made  their  way  to  Russian  America 
in  increasing  numbers,  and  before  many  years  cap 
tured  a  goodly  portion  of  the  fur  trade  which  the 
company  was  seeking  to  monopolize.  Vigorous 
protests  to  St.  Petersburg  followed,  and  in  1821  the 
Czar  issued  a  ukase  in  which,  after  claiming  for 
Russia  all  of  the  American  coast  from  Bering 
Straits  to  the  fifty-first  parallel,  he  declared  that  "it 
is  therefore  prohibited  to  all  foreign  vessels  not  only 
to  land  on  the  coasts  and  islands  belonging  to  Russia 
as  stated  above,  but  also  to  approach  them  within 
less  than  one  hundred  Italian  miles."  At  once  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  took  umbrage  at 
this  assumption  of  ownership  to  a  region  to  which 
they  themselves  had  pretensions,  and  still  more  at 
the  trading  prohibition.  Negotiations  were  begun 
on  the  basis  of  a  territorial  adjustment,  and  ulti 
mately,  by  treaties  concluded  with  the  United  States 


1 76    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

in  1824  and  Great  Britain  in  1825,  Russia  agreed  to 
content  herself  with  the  coastal  country  north  of 
latitude  fifty-four  degrees,  forty  minutes;  and  to 
modify  the  obnoxious  restriction  in  trade. 

This  modification,  as  affected  the  United  States, 
consisted  in  opening  Alaskan  waters  and  ports  to 
American  vessels  for  a  period  of  ten  years  "for  the 
purpose  of  fishing  and  trading  with  the  natives  of 
the  country."  Unfortunately,  unscrupulous  traders 
so  abused  the  privilege  by  selling  liquor  and  fire 
arms  to  the  natives,  in  defiance  of  the  Russian  regu 
lations,  that  at  the  termination  of  the  ten-year  period 
it  was  not  renewed.  Some  diplomatic  correspond 
ence  followed,  but  in  the  end  the  United  States 
Government  submitted,  and  in  1837  officially  warned 
American  skippers  to  keep  away  from  Alaska. 
With  the  passage  of  time  and  the  settlement  and 
steady  growth  of  Oregon  and  California  the  limita 
tion  thus  imposed  upon  American  commerce  came 
to  be  more  and  more  keenly  felt.  But  no  measures 
were  taken  to  remedy  the  situation  until,  in  1866, 
the  Legislature  of  Washington  Territory  adopted 
a  memorial  to  President  Johnson,  in  which,  after 
stating  that  "abundance  of  codfish,  halibut,  and 
salmon  of  excellent  quality  have  been  found  along  the 
shores  of  the  Russian  possessions,"  they  begged  the 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  177 

President  "to  obtain  such  rights  and  privileges  of 
the  Government  of  Russia  as  will  enable  our  fishing 
vessels  to  visit  the  ports  and  harbors  of  its  posses 


sions." 


In  due  course  this  memorial  came  to  Secretary  of 
State  Seward  for  action;  and  about  the  same  time 
he  learned  that  a  number  of  Californians  had  organ 
ized  a  fur-trading  company  in  the  hope  of  persuading 
the  Russian  Government  to  renew  to  them  the 
privileges  of  the  Russian  Fur  Company,  whose 
charter  had  expired.  Forthwith  a  brilliant  prospect 
unfolded  before  Seward 's  boundless  imagination. 
Russia,  he  was  well  aware,  was  beginning  to  consider 
her  American  holdings  a  source  of  embarrassment 
rather  than  of  profit.  Mismanagement  and  the  suc 
cessful  competition  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  Company, 
which  had  literally  forced  a  large  territorial  lease  in 
Russian  America  as  compensation  for  damages  in 
flicted  in  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  1825,  had  wrecked 
the  Russian  Fur  Company.  Instead  of  yielding  a 
handsome  revenue,  the  settlements  now  showed  an 
annual  deficit.  Moreover,  they  were  remote  and 
difficult  to  defend  —  so  weak,  in  fact,  that  they  were 
certain  to  fall  at  the  first  attack.  That  attack,  in 
all  probability,  would  come  from  Great  Britain, 
Russia's  deadliest  foe.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would 


178    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

be  to  the  interest  of  the  United  States  to  forestall 
any  attempt  by  Great  Britain  thus  to  extend  her 
coast  line  on  the  Pacific.  Besides  which,  Alaska 
was  unquestionably  a  country  of  great  possibilities, 
from  both  a  military  and  an  economic  standpoint. 
If  Russia  wished  or  could  be  induced  to  sell,  there 
was,  in  Seward's  opinion,  every  reason  why  the 
United  States  should  buy.  And  rumor  afterwards 
credited  him  with  further  believing  the  purchase 
might  be  made  the  occasion  of  rallying  the  nation 
to  the  support  of  the  discredited  Johnson  adminis 
tration. 

Confiding  his  plans  and  hopes  to  no  one,  he  went 
to  work.  His  first  step  was  to  call  the  attention  of 
the  Russian  Minister,  Edward  de  Stoeckel,  to  the 
Washington  memorial,  and  to  urge  upon  de 
Stoeckel  the  desirability  of  effecting  a  comprehen 
sive  arrangement  between  Russia  and  the  United 
States  to  prevent  difficulties  arising  on  account  of 
the  Alaska  fisheries.  He  then  instructed  Cassius  M. 
Clay,  the  American  Minister  at  St.  Petersburg,  to 
take  up  with  the  Russian  Chancellor,  the  great 
Gortchakoff,  the  question  of  granting  a  franchise  to 
the  projected  California  Fur  Company.  This  Clay 
did,  and  reported  to  Seward  that  the  Russian  Govern 
ment  seemed  to  think  favorably  of  his  proposal. 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  179 

"The  Russian  Government,"  he  similarly  wrote  to 
a  promoter  of  the  California  organization,  "has 
already  ceded  away  its  rights  in  Russian  America  for 
a  term  of  years,  and  the  Russo-American  Company 
has  also  ceded  the  same  to  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com 
pany.  This  lease  expires  in  June  next,  and  the 
President  of  the  Russo-American  Company  tells  me 
that  they  have  been  in  correspondence  with  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  about  a  renewal  of  the 
lease  for  another  term  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  years. 
Until  he  receives  a  definite  answer  he  cannot  enter 
into  negotiations  with  us  or  your  California  com 
pany.  My  opinion  is  that  if  he  can  get  off  with  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company  he  will  do  so,  when  we  can 
make  some  arrangement  with  the  Russo-American 
Company."  * 

Meantime,  de  Stoeckel  had  returned  to  St.  Peters 
burg  on  leave  of  absence,  and  the  attitude  of  his 
superiors  soon  underwent  a  complete  change. 
Whether  this  was  a  result  of  representations  made 
by  Seward  to  de  Stoeckel  before  his  departure  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  the  veil  of  secrecy  in  which  the 
negotiations  were  conducted  not  having  been  entirely 
lifted  to  the  present  day.  In  any  event,  the  eager 
Secretary  of  State  was  informed  that  Russia  had  no 

*  "The  Works  of  Charles  Sumner,"  vol.  XI,  p.  208. 


i8o    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

inclination  to  make  temporary  and  minor  arrange 
ments  of  the  nature  proposed,  but  would  willingly 
enter  into  negotiations  looking  to  a  sale  of  her 
American  possessions.  The  story  is  told  that,  on 
the  very  night  de  Stoeckel  was  leaving  St.  Petersburg 
to  resume  his  official  duties  in  Washington,  he  was 
abruptly  accosted  by  the  Archduke  Constantine,  the 
Czar's  brother  and  chief  adviser,  and  given  permis 
sion  to  negotiate  a  treaty  of  cession. 

Arriving  at  Washington  early  in  March,  1867,  the 
preliminaries  were  quickly  arranged.  Seward's  first 
offer  of  five  million  dollars  was  met  by  a  counter- 
demand  for  ten  millions,  de  Stoeckel  finally  agreeing 
to  accept  seven.  Then  a  slight  hitch -'arose  on  the 
question  of  the  rights  and  privileges  still  held  by  the 
Russian  Fur  Company  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  Com 
pany,  Seward  insisting  that  the  territory  must  be 
delivered  to  the  United  States  free  of  all  encum 
brances,  and  offering  to  pay  in  addition  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars  if  this  demand  were  met.  De 
Stoeckel  consenting,  the  terms  of  the  proposed  treaty 
were  telegraphed  to  St.  Petersburg  via  the  Altantic 
cable,  which  had  been  put  into  successful  operation 
only  the  year  before.  Anxiously  Seward  awaited 
the  response,  fearful  lest  it  should  come  too  late  to 
permit  of  action  by  Congress,  which  had  assembled 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  181 

in  extra  session  to  insure  execution  by  President 
Johnson  of  the  reconstruction  bill  recently  passed 
over  his  veto.  But  the  Secretary's  anxiety  was  short 
lived.  Before  the  end  of  March  the  desired  per 
mission  had  been  received. 

Then  Seward  acted  with  a  promptitude  unparalleled 
in  the  annals  of  diplomacy.  He  was  at  home,  play 
ing  whist  with  his  family,  when  de  Stoeckel,  on  the 
evening  of  March  29,  called  to  inform  him  that  the 
imperial  consent  had  been  given.  "If  you  like,  Mr. 
Seward,"  said  he,  "I  will  come  to  the  department 
to-morrow,  and  we  can  draw  up  the  treaty."  "Ah," 
responded  Seward,  pushing  back  his  chair  from  the 
whist  table,  "why  wait  until  to-morrow,  Mr.  de 
Stoeckel  ?  Let  us  make  the  treaty  to-night."  To  de 
Stoeckel's  objection  that  the  State  Department  was 
closed  and  that  his  own  secretaries  were  scattered 
about  Washington,  Seward  insistently  replied:  "If 
you  can  muster  your  legation  before  midnight,  you 
will  find  me  at  the  department,  which  will  be  open 
and  ready  for  business."  Carried  away  by  Seward's 
enthusiasm,  de  Stoeckel  gasped  acquiescence,  and 
soon  messengers  were  hurrying  in  all  directions  to 
summon  department  and  legation  officials.  At  four 
o'clock  on  the  morning  of  March  30,  after  unremit 
ting  toil  throughout  the  night,  the  treaty  transferring 


182    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Alaska  from  Russia  to  the  United  States  was  en 
grossed,  signed,  sealed,  and  ready  for  transmission 
to  the  Senate  * 

There  its  sponsor  was  to  be  Charles  Sumner, 
Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations. 
Even  from  Sumner  Seward  had  kept  the  secret  of 
his  negotiations  until  de  Stoeckel  brought  him  the 
welcome  news  from  St.  Petersburg,  and  the  Massa 
chusetts  Senator's  amazement  on  learning  of  the 
treaty  may  be  better  imagined  than  described.  He 
promised,  none  the  less,  to  use  all  his  influence  to 
secure  its  ratification,  though  by  no  means  in  favor 
of  it  himself.  "The  Russian  treaty,"  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  a  few  days  later,  "tried  me  severely;  ab 
stractly  I  am  against  further  accessions  of  territory 
unless  by  the  free  choice  of  the  inhabitants.  But 
this  question  was  perplexed  by  considerations  of 
politics  and  comity  and  the  engagements  already 
entered  into  by  the  Government.  I  hesitated  to 
take  the  responsibility  of  defeating  it."f  Others 
were  outspoken  in  their  hostility  to  the  treaty  and  in 
denunciation  of  Seward  for  having  arranged  it.  In 
fact,  a  flood  of  criticism  rolled  towards  Washington 

*This  account  is  based  on  the  intimate  narrative  given  by  F.  W. 
Seward  in  his  "Seward  at  Washington,"  vol.  II,  pp.  348-49. 

t  Sumner  to  John  Bright,  in  E.  L.  Pierce's  "Memoir  and  Letters  of 
Charles  Sumner,"  vol.  IV,  pp.  318-19. 


<  3 

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WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  183 

from  almost  every  section  of  the  country,  and  espe 
cially  from  the  States  of  the  East  and  Middle  West. 
Russian  America  was  declared  to  be  a  "  barren, 
worthless,  God-forsaken  region/'  whose  only  pro 
ducts  were  "  icebergs  and  polar  bears."  Its  streams 
were  "glaciers/'  its  ground  was  " frozen  six  feet 
deep,"  for  vegetation  it  had  nothing  but  " mosses." 
Some  one,  with  cheap  sarcasm,  suggested  that  it  be 
called  "Walrussia,"  and  there  were  many  who 
thought  that  "Seward's  Folly"  was  the  only  fitting 
designation  for  it.  All  of  which  had  no  effect  what 
ever  on  the  imperturbable  Secretary  of  State,  who 
amused  himself  and  his  friends  by  reading  from  old 
newspapers  the  similar  comment  passed  in  former 
times  on  Jefferson's  purchase  of  the  "desert  waste" 
of  Louisiana,  and  the  later  acquisition  of  the 
"noxious  swamps"  of  "snake-infested"  Florida. 

What  did  disturb  him  was  the  thought  that  the 
Senate,  influenced  by  the  treaty's  evident  unpopu 
larity  among  the  nation  at  large,  might  reject  it. 
But  in  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations  he  had  an  all-powerful  ally.  Whatever 
his  private  opinions,  Sumner  for  the  time  being  kept 
them  rigidly  to  himself,  and  while  the  treaty  was 
being  considered  in  committee,  labored  diligently  in 
the  preparation  of  a  speech  which  should  insure 


1 84    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

ratification  by  an  overwhelming  vote.  This  speech, 
afterwards  elaborated  and  published  as  a  mono 
graph  on  the  resources  and  possibilities  of  Alaska,* 
he  delivered  April  9  to  an  audience  that  followed  his 
every  word  with  the  greatest  interest.  He  began 
by  hinting  at  the  reasons  which  had  induced  Russia 
to  part  with  her  holdings,  and  reminded  his  hearers 
of  the  motives  impelling  Napoleon  to  cede  Louisiana. 
"  Perhaps,"  he  suggested,  a  " similar  record  may  be 
made  hereafter  with  regard  to  the  present  cession. 
...  All  must  see  that  in  those  ' coming  events' 
which  now,  more  than  ever,  'cast  their  shadows 
before/  it  will  be  for  her  advantage  not  to  hold  out 
lying  possessions  for  which,  thus  far,  she  has  obtained 
no  income  commensurate  with  the  possible  expense 
for  their  protection.  ...  In  ceding  possessions  so 
little  within  the  sphere  of  her  empire,  embracing 
more  than  one  hundred  nations  or  tribes,  Russia 
gives  up  no  part  of  herself.  And  even  if  she  did, 
the  considerable  price  paid,  the  alarm  of  war  which 
begins  to  fill  our  ears,  and  the  sentiments  of  friend 
ship  declared  for  the  United  States,  would  explain 
the  transaction."  Turning  to  the  reasons  why  the 
United  States  should  accept  the  cession,  he  sum- 

*The  student  will  find  it  printed  in  full  in  "The  Works  of  Charles 
Sumner,"  vol.  XI,  pp.  181-349. 


WILLIAM  HENRY  SEWARD  185 

marized  in  vivid  outline  all  the  information  he  had 
been  able  to  obtain  concerning  the  timber,  minerals, 
furs,  fisheries,  physical  features,  climate,  and  in 
habitants  of  Alaska,  drawing  a  picture  in  sharp  con 
trast  with  that  of  the  " iceberg  and  polar  bear" 
critics.  It  was  an  unanswerable  argument,  silen 
cing  all  opposition  so  far  as  the  Senate  was  concerned, 
and  that  same  day  the  necessary  "  ad  vice  and  con 
sent"  to  ratification  was  given  by  the  impressive 
vote  of  thirty-seven  to  two,  Fessenden  and  Morrill 
of  Vermont  alone  voting  in  the  negative. 

Danger  now  threatened,  however,  from  the  House 
of  Representatives,  where  certain  members,  jealous 
of  their  rights,  asserted  that  the  President  and  the 
Senate  were  in  duty  bound  to  consult  the  House 
with  reference  to  a  treaty  involving  the  payment  of 
money  —  this  view  finding  its  justification  in  the 
fact  that  appropriation  bills  had  to  originate  in  the 
House.  For  more  than  a  year,  and  until  long  after 
the  United  States  had  taken  possession  of  its  new 
Territory,  the  necessary  bill  appropriating  the  seven 
million  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  called  for  by 
the  treaty  was  not  passed,  and  in  passing  it  the 
House  took  occasion  to  assert  its  right  to  consider 
the  stipulations  of  a  treaty  of  this  kind  before  it 
could  go  into  effect.  Incidentally  the  debate  revealed 


186    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  continuance  of  a  widespread  hostility  to  the 
cession.  "The  country,"  declared  Washburn,  of 
Wisconsin,  the  leader  in  the  attack,  "is  absolutely 
without  value,"  and  he  condemned  the  treaty  acquir 
ing  it  as  "an  outrage  on  the  rights  of  the  American 
people." 

But  Seward  still  rejoiced  in  his  achievement,  and 
died  accounting  it  among  his  most  meritorious 
efforts.  To  the  present  generation,  well  aware  oi 
the  riches  that  have  since  been  discovered  in  the 
supposedly  icy  wastes  of  Alaska  —  the  name  of 
which,  by  the  way,  was  selected  by  Seward  himself 
-  there  cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  that  he  had 
indeed  labored  wisely  and  well  for  his  country. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WILLIAM  McKINLEY  AND  THE  TRANSMARINE 
POSSESSIONS 

AFTER  the  acquisition  of  Alaska  in  1867  more  than 
thirty  years  passed  before  the  United  States  made 
another  territorial  addition.  But  in  the  interval 
there  were  many  indications  that  the  expansionistic 
impulse  was  still  active.  Attempts  were  made  to 
purchase  Denmark's  possessions  in  the  West  Indies; 
the  annexation  of  San  Domingo  was  vigorously 
urged,  particularly  by  President  Grant;  there  was 
much  talk  of  bringing  Cuba  into  the  American  fold; 
and,  finally,  the  idea  of  securing  a  foothold  in  the 
mid-Pacific  by  annexing  the  Hawaiian  Islands  found 
wide  favor.  For  one  reason  or  another  all  of  these 
projects  failed,  saving  only  the  annexation  of  Hawaii. 
And  the  accomplishment  of  this,  although  it  could 
hardly  have  been  delayed  much  longer,  must  be 
credited,  not  to  any  premeditated  design,  but  to 
an  unforeseen  event  that  brought  about  the 
acquisition,  not  of  Hawaii  alone,  but  of  new  lands 

far  more  extensive  and  valuable  than  Hawaii. 

187 


i88    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

This  event  was  the  unexpected  outbreak  of  a  war 
with  Spain  —  a  war  waged  not  in  any  spirit  of  con 
quest  or  spoliation,  but  in  the  great  cause  of  hu 
manity.  The  seeds  of  the  conflict  were  sown  in 
the  autumn  of  1896,  when  in  order  to  crush  a  rebel 
lion  that  had  begun  in  the  island  colony  of  Cuba  the 
preceding  year,  the  Spanish  commanding  general 
put  into  effect  a  so-called  reconcentration  policy. 
He  had  discovered  that  the  great  majority  of  the 
Cuban  peasantry  sympathized  with  and  gave  aid 
to  the  rebels.  So,  in  order  to  cut  off  this  source 
of  assistance,  he  ordered  the  soldiery  to  compel 
the  people  to  abandon  their  homes  and  move  to 
the  vicinity  of  the  fortified  towns.  Here,  under  the 
watchful  eye  of  brutal  guards,  they  were  penned  up 
like  cattle.  Crowded  together  in  noisome  quarters, 
poorly  clothed,  lacking  good  food,  and  forced  to 
drink  impure  water,  these  unfortunates  died  by  the 
thousand.  At  the  spectacle  a  cry  of  horror  and 
wrath  went  up  from  the  whole  civilized  world. 

In  especial,  the  people  and  Government  of  the 
United  States  voiced  the  universal  indignation, 
President  Cleveland  sounding  a  warning  note  to 
Spain  in  the  course  of  his  last  Message  to  Congress. 
But  diplomatic  hints  and  open  protests  alike  went 
unheeded.  No  matter  what  the  cost  in  human  life 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  189 

the  Spanish  Government  was  resolved  to  stamp  out 
the  rebellion  and  re-establish  its  authority.  Soon 
the  entire  island,  seat  of  vast  and  prosperous  planta 
tions,  was  transformed  into  a  bleeding,  desolate 
waste.  And  still,  with  incredible  heroism,  the  rebels 
maintained  themselves  against  a  long  succession  of 
troops  sent  out  from  Spain.  Again  the  United 
States  remonstrated,  sending  a  new  Minister  to 
Madrid  with  special  instructions  to  emphasize  the 
necessity  of  terminating  the  unendurable  state  of 
affairs  in  Cuba.  The  sole  result  was  the  recall  of 
the  barbaric  commanding  general  and  a  modifica 
tion  of  the  reconcentration  order.  Fighting  con 
tinued  as  before,  with  all  its  attendant  horrors.  On 
the  night  of  February  15,  1898,  the  climax  was 
reached  when  the  United  States  battleship  Maine, 
while  lying  peacefully  at  anchor  in  Havana  harbor, 
was  blown  to  pieces  with  a  loss  of  more  than  two 
hundred  and  sixty  officers  and  men. 

At  once,  from  Maine  to  California,  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land,  rose  a  demand  for  vengeance, 
a  cry  for  war,  instant  war.  But  there  were  those 
who  felt  that  Spain  should  yet  be  given  a  chance, 
that  the  responsibility  for  this  appalling  catastrophe 
must  be  fixed  before  proceeding  to  extremities. 
And  chief  among  the  restraining  influences  that 


1 90    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

imposed  patience  on  the  wrathful  nation  was  its 
new  President,  William  McKinley.  He  had  already 
denounced  Spain's  Cuban  policy  in  measured  but 
forceful  terms.  He  had  urged  upon  the  Spanish 
Government  the  importance  of  effecting  a  speedy 
and  honorable  peace  with  the  Cubans.  He  had 
plainly  intimated  that,  failing  such  a  settlement, 
the  United  States,  out  of  self-interest  as  well  as  for 
humanity's  sake,  would  feel  obliged  to  resort  to 
armed  intervention.  But  all  the  time  he  had  been 
hopeful  that  war  between  the  United  States  and 
Spain  might  yet  be  averted.  And  now  that  the 
crisis  had  been  reached  in  this  strange  and  terrible 
fashion,  he  was  more  than  ever  determined  to  give 
Spain  opportunity  to  end  her  sanguinary  dealings 
with  her  unhappy  Cuban  subjects.  Cuba,  not  the 
Maine,  must  be  the  issue.  If  war  came,  it  must  be 
a  righteous  war,  not  a  war  of  blind,  unreasoning 
revenge. 

A  fine,  strong  man,  this  McKinley  —  a  man 
greatly  misunderstood  in  his  day,  and  only  now 
beginning  to  be  appreciated.  The  dominant  figure 
in  our  study  of  the  latest  steps  in  the  territorial 
growth  of  the  United  States,  it  will  be  well  to  fix 
him  clearly  in  our  mind's  eye.  A  man  of  dignified, 
impressive,  self-contained  presence  that  added  con- 


WILLIAM  MCKINLEY 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  191 

siderably  to  his  five  feet  nine  of  physical  stature,  he 
looked  at  one  frankly  out  of  honest  eyes.  His  very 
handshake  bespoke  his  nature  —  warm,  ardent, 
sincere.  Yet  he  was  not  a  man  to  be  read  at  a  glance. 
In  private  life  full  of  humor,  fond  of  a  joke  and 
a  good  story,  his  public  demeanor  was  reserved, 
solemn,  almost  distant.  He  inspired  in  the  multi 
tude  none  of  the  enthusiasm  that  had  been  felt  for 
Jackson,  Clay,  and  other  national  idols.  But  it 
would  be  hard  to  name  another  American  in  whom 
the  people  at  large  felt  such  abiding  confidence. 
Men  trusted  in  him  because  of  his  patent  devotion 
to  the  highest  ideals  —  ideals  of  Christian  living, 
of  domestic  virtue,  of  public  rectitude  —  and  be 
cause  of  his  obvious  and  phenomenal  insight  into 
the  desires  and  needs  of  the  nation.  This  last 
characteristic  brought  from  his  enemies,  and  from 
those  who  were  not  his  enemies  but  knew  him  not 
at  all,  the  accusation  that  he  was  truckling  and  time 
serving  and  a  slave  to  the  fitful  changes  of  public 
opinion,  letting  himself  be  drawn  with  it  whither 
soever  it  might  lead.  But  the  truth  was  very  dif 
ferent.  On  occasion  —  and  the  interval  between 
the  destruction  of  the  Maine  and  the  outbreak  of 
war  was  one  of  such  occasions  —  he  could  and  did 
manfully  withstand  public  opinion.  His  strength 


192    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

lay  in  his  instinctive  ability  to  grasp  the  sentiments 
of  the  nation  and  direct  those  sentiments  along  lines 
that  made  for  national  safety,  honor,  and  greatness.* 
He  was  always  a  believer  in  the  destiny  and 
capacity  of  the  United  States  for  great  achievements. 
From  the  days  of  his  young  manhood  he  translated 
that  belief  into  action.  When  the  first  gun  rang  out 
in  the  Civil  War,  he  was  a  poor,  unknown  youth 
struggling  for  an  education  in  a  small  Ohio  town. 
Thither  came  an  orator  bearing  Lincoln's  call  for 
troops.  "Our  flag  has  been  fired  on,"  he  cried; 

*  In  a  letter  from  George  B.  Cortelyou,  one  of  the  men  who  knew 
McKinley  best,  to  John  F.  Gaffey,  President  of  the  McKinley  Associa 
tion  of  Connecticut,  occurs  this  striking  and  just  appreciation:  "We 
cannot  too  often  repeat  to  the  American  people  the  story  of  his  life; 
his  youthful  patriotism;  his  devotion  to  his  mother;  his  fine  loyalty  in 
all  the  sacred  relations  of  home;  his  long  years  of  public  service,  marked 
by  ever-increasing  growth  in  the  affection  and  regard  of  the  people. 
Such  a  life  and  such  a  service,  even  had  they  not  known  the  great  respon 
sibilities  and  great  opportunities  of  the  Presidency,  would  have  entitled 
him  to  a  place  high  on  the  honor  roll  of  the  nation.  But  from  the  day 
that  he  became  President,  he  grew  and  broadened  in  his  grasp  of  public 
questions,  in  his  realization  of  the  needs  and  weaknesses  and  the  pos 
sibilities  of  our  citizenship,  in  his  determination  so  to  administer  the 
affairs  of  his  great  office  as  to  contribute  in  substantial  degree  to  the 
Republic's  progress  along  the  pathway  of  enlightenment  and  civiliza 
tion.  His  achievements  have  gone  into  history,  to  be  told  and  retold 
in  the  coming  ages.  As  we  gain  a  better  perspective  of  the  eventful 
years  of  his  administration,  we  shall  come  to  know  more  and  more  the 
greatness  and  nobility  of  his  nature  and  the  fulness  of  his  consecra 
tion  to  the  welfare  of  all  the  people.  He  died  as  he  lived  —  to  the  last, 
gentle,  patient,  considerate,  forgiving,  and  the  words  of  his  faith  and  of 
his  hope  fell  upon  this  stricken  land  with  the  beauty  and  dignity  of  a 
benediction." 


WILLIAM   McKINLEY  193 

"who  will  be  the  first  to  defend  it?"  Out  from  the 
throng  stepped  a  little  group  of  young  men,  McKinley 
among  them.  For  fourteen  months  he  served  in 
the  ranks,  his  one  thought  the  preservation  of  the 
Union.  Throughout  the  war  he  took  part  in  every 
engagement  fought  by  his  regiment,  the  celebrated 
Twenty- third  Ohio.  At  Antietam  his  bravery  won 
him  a  lieutenancy.  For  gallantry  at  Opequan, 
Cedar  Creek,  and  Fisher's  Hill  Lincoln  made  him 
a  major  by  brevet.  He  figured  in  the  last  act  of  the 
long  conflict,  the  grand  review  at  Washington  of  the 
united  armies  of  Grant,  Sherman,  and  Sheridan. 
Then,  laying  down  his  sword,  he  returned  to  Ohio  to 
begin  the  study  of  law.  After  which,  in  a  few  short 
years,  he  embarked  on  the  Congressional  career  that 
won  him  speedy  fame  as  a  builder  of  Greater 
America.  From  the  first  he  was  identified  with  the 
tariff  movement  that  did  so  much  to  lift  the  United 
States  to  a  foremost  place  among  the  nations  of  the 
world.  Soon  McKinley  and  Protection  became 
synonymous  terms.  As  early  as  1888  he  might  have 
had  the  Republican  nomination  for  the  Presidency 
had  it  not  been  for  his  loyalty  to  John  Sherman. 
Again  in  1892  there  was  a  determined  movement 
to  nominate  him.  And  finally,  in  1896,  the  predic 
tion  made  by  Elaine  many  years  earlier  found  its 


194    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

vindication.  William  McKinley  was  nominated  and 
elected  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  United  States. 

So  there  he  stood  in  the  White  House,  in  the  chill 
spring  days  of  1898,  face  to  face  with  the  prospect 
of  war.  Did  war  come,  there  could  be  only  one 
result  —  certain  and  overwhelming  victory  for  the 
United  States.  Since  the  days  when  Jackson  chal 
lenged  the  wrath  of  Spain  by  his  daring  raids  into 
Florida,  the  disparity  between  the  strength  and 
resources  of  the  two  countries  had  become  con 
stantly  and  glaringly  more  apparent.  On  the  one 
side  was  a  young,  lusty,  vigorous  people,  in  the  full 
flush  of  a  long  and  almost  uninterrupted  period  of 
progress  and  prosperity.  On  the  other,  a  decrepit, 
enervated,  backward  nation.  No  more  convincing 
illustration  of  the  material  power  of  the  United 
States  could  have  been  found  than  the  action  of 
Congress  in  voting  an  appropriation  of  fifty  million 
dollars  to  be  placed  at  the  President's  disposal  "as 
an  emergency  fund  for  national  defense." 

"This  morning,"  wrote  Minister  Woodford  from 
Madrid,  "the  papers  announce  the  unanimous 
passage  by  the  House  of  Mr.  Cannon's  bill  putting 
fifty  million  dollars  at  your  disposal.  It  has  not 
excited  the  Spaniards  —  it  has  stunned  them.  To 
appropriate  fifty  millions  out  of  money  in  the  Treas- 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  195 

ury,  without  borrowing  a  cent,  demonstrates  wealth 
and  power.  Even  Spain  can  see  this.  To  put  this 
money,  without  restriction  and  by  unanimous  vote, 
absolutely  at  your  disposal  demonstrates  entire  con 
fidence  in  you  by  all  parties.  The  Ministry  and 
the  press  are  simply  stunned."*  But  Spain,  instead 
of  accepting  the  sufficient  hint,  replied  by  securing 
a  war  loan  of  forty  million  dollars  from  the  Bank  of 
Spain.  Even  the  patient  McKinley's  patience  be 
came  exhausted.  On  April  n  he  sent  his  significant 
message  to  Congress  —  "In  the  name  of  humanity, 
in  the  name  of  civilization,  in  behalf  of  endangered 
American  interests,  which  give  us  the  right  and  the 
duty  to  speak  and  to  act,  the  war  in  Cuba  must  stop." 
Before  the  month  was  out  the  first  gun  in  the  con 
flict  with  Spain  had  been  fired  and  an  epoch-making 
despatch  had  flashed  around  the  world  to  an  Ameri 
can  naval  officer  at  Hongkong.  This  officer  was 
George  Dewey,  commanding  the  Asiatic  squadron, 
and  the  despatch,  which  he  had  been  expectantly 
awaiting,  simply  said:  "War  has  commenced  be 
tween  the  United  States  and  Spain.  Proceed  at 
once  to  Philippine  Islands.  Commence  operations 
at  once,  particularly  against  the  Spanish  fleet.  You 

*" House   Document  No.   i,   Fifty-fifth  Congress,  Third  Session." 
p.  684. 


196    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

must  capture  vessels  or  destroy.    Use  utmost  en 
deavors.  —  LONG."* 

For  our  purpose  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on 
the  splendid  manner  in  which  Dewey  responded  to 
this  appeal  —  steaming  into  Manila  harbor  and 
crushing  the  Spanish  fleet  under  the  very  guns  of 
the  protecting  Spanish  forts.  The  important  point 
to  us  is  the  fact  that  Dewey's  victory  led  directly  to 
territorial  acquisitions  by  the  United  States.  First 
among  these,  in  point  of  time,  was  the  acquisition 
not  of  the  Philippine  but  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands. 
Ever  since  1893,  when  the  native  monarchy  was 
overturned  in  a  revolution  fostered,  if  not  fathered, 
by  American  settlers,  there  had  been  a  determined 
movement  looking  to  the  incorporation  of  Hawaii  in 
the  American  domain.  This  idea,  in  fact,  had  first 
been  mooted  as  early  as  1853,  when  Marcy  proposed 
to  annex  the  islands  lest  they  should  fall  into  the 
hands  of  other  Powers,  and  also  as  a  means  of 
strengthening  American  influence  in  the  Pacific. f 
But  annexation  found  few  advocates  in  the  United 
States  until  the  revolution  of  1893  had  become  an 
accomplished  fact.  And  even  then  it  was  bitterly 

*" House  Document  No.  3,  Fifty-fifth  Congress,  Third  Session," 
p.  6. 

t  A  convenient  summary  of  the  Marcy  negotiations  is  contained  in 
Willis  F.  Johnson's  "A  Century  of  Expansion,"  pp.  235-37. 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  197 

opposed  so  soon  as  the  discovery  was  made  that  the 
Hawaiians  expected  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union 
on  a  basis  of  Statehood.  Still,  the  influences  in  favor 
of  annexation  were  so  strong  that  a  treaty  was 
actually  negotiated  and  submitted  to  the  United 
States  Senate  by  President  Harrison.  Before  action 
could  be  had,  Harrison  was  succeeded  by  Cleveland, 
who  promptly  withdrew  the  treaty  and,  after  careful 
inquiry,  refused  to  resubmit  it,  declaring  that  the 
lawful  government  of  Hawaii  had  been  disrupted 
through  American  agency  and  that  under  the  cir 
cumstances  it  would  be  grossly  improper  for  the 
United  States  to  annex  the  islands.  After  this  the 
question  slumbered  until  1897,  when  the  Republi 
can  party  returned  to  power  and  a  new  annexation 
treaty  was  negotiated.  It  was  seen,  however,  that 
the  Statehood  idea  would  still  prove  an  insuperable 
obstacle;  and  accordingly,  acting  on  the  precedent 
established  in  the  annexation  of  Texas,  it  was 
decided  to  endeavor  to  annex  Hawaii  by  joint  reso 
lution  of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  the  resolution  to 
provide  merely  that  the  islands  should  become  "a 
part  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States." 

This  was  the  situation  when  the  cable  brought 
from  the  far  East  the  news  of  Dewey's  success. 
Following  his  first  despatch  came  a  second,  announ- 


198    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

cing  that  he  could  take  the  city  of  Manila  at  any 
time.  But  it  was  evident  that  he  did  not  have  a 
force  strong  enough  to  hold  it,  if  Spain  should  send 
out  reinforcements,  and  at  once  the  President  deter 
mined  to  rush  troops  to  his  aid.  With  this  decision, 
and  with  the  open  violations  of  neutrality  by  the 
people  of  Hawaii,  who  allowed  the  American  war 
ships  and  transports  to  use  Honolulu  as  a  naval 
base,  an  additional  reason  was  found  for  annexing 
the  islands.  From  the  strategic  if  from  no  other 
point  of  view,  they  were  certain  to  prove  of  incal 
culable  value  to  the  United  States.  Perceiving  this, 
McKinley  was  quick  to  act.  On  his  recommenda 
tion,  the  joint  resolution  was  brought  up  and  adopted, 
in  the  House  by  a  vote  of  two  hundred  and  nine  to 
ninety-one,  and  in  the  Senate  by  forty-two  to  twenty- 
one.  July  7,  1898,  it  was  definitely  approved. 
Little  more  than  a  month  later,  and,  oddly  enough, 
on  the  same  day  that  the  peace  protocol,  marking 
the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  Spanish  war,  was 
signed  at  Washington,  the  United  States  Govern 
ment  took  formal  possession  of  Hawaii.  Thus  was 
consummated  the  first  territorial  addition  of  the 
McKinley  administration. 

It  was  not  one,  however,  in  which  McKinley  him 
self  played  the  predominating  role  that  he  achieved 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  199 

in  the  later  acquisitions,  and  more  particularly  in 
the  acquisition  of  the  Philippine  Islands.  The 
war,  as  need  hardly  be  recalled,  was  a  succession  of 
unbroken  victories  for  American  arms.  Sampson 
and  Schley  destroyed  a  Spanish  fleet  in  Cuban 
waters  with  almost  as  little  difficulty  as  Dewey  had 
experienced  in  wiping  out  that  other  Spanish  fleet 
in  far-away  Manila  Bay.  Roosevelt  and  his  Rough 
Riders  attained  international  fame  on  Cuban  soil. 
Miles,  with  scarcely  an  effort,  mastered  Porto  Rico, 
whose  native  inhabitants  built  triumphal  arches  in 
the  invaders'  honor.  In  the  Spanish  mid-Pacific 
possessions  of  the  Ladrone  group,  a  single  war-ship 
sufficed  for  the  capture  of  the  island  of  Guam. 
Utterly  at  the  mercy  of  the  United  States,  Spain  in 
four  short  months  was  glad  to  sue  for  peace.  And 
by  the  terms  of  the  protocol,  signed  August  12,  as 
preliminary  to  the  conclusion  of  a  definite  treaty,  she 
expressly  relinquished  "all  claim  of  sovereignty  over 
and  title  to  Cuba,"  and  ceded  to  the  United  States 
the  island  of  Porto  Rico,  "and  also  an  island  in  the 
Ladrones  to  be  selected  by  the  United  States."* 

The  crucial  problem,  for  the  United  States  as  well 
as  for  Spain,  was  the  question  of  what  should  be 

*"  House  Document  No.  i,  Fifty-6fth  Congress,  Third  Session," 
pp.  828-30. 


200    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

done  with  the  Philippines.  Inhabited  by  fierce  and 
warlike  tribes,  these  islands  had  long  been  in  a 
chronic  state  of  insurrection  against  the  character 
istic  misrule  of  their  Spanish  overlords.  In  1896 
there  was  an  organized  uprising,  which  was  stamped 
out  only  through  the  defection  of  its  leaders,  who 
were  bribed  to  leave  the  islands.  One  of  these 
leaders,  a  shrewd  and  quick-witted  Malay  named 
Aguinaldo,  was  at  Hongkong  when  Dewey  received 
his  orders  to  attack  the  Spanish  fleet,  and  he  at  once 
resolved  to  return  to  the  Philippines  and  organize  a 
new  rebellion.  Carrying  out  this  resolution,  he  soon 
raised  a  native  force  strong  enough  to  invest  Manila 
by  land,  while  Dewey  blockaded  it  with  his  war 
ships.  And,  late  in  June,  though  without  any 
official  recognition  from  the  American  Admiral, 
the  fiery  Filipinos  formally  declared  the  islands  free 
and  independent,  and  elected  Aguinaldo  as  their 
first  President. 

Here,  then,  was  one  perplexing  factor  in  the  situa 
tion.  There  were  many  others.  Hardly  had  the 
echoes  of  the  battle  of  Manila  Bay  died  away  before 
it  was  realized  that  if  the  logical  fruits  of  Dewey's 
victory  were  reaped,  the  American  nation  would 
enter  on  a  completely  new  phase  of  its  existence. 
It  would,  for  the  first  time,  take  a  place  among  the 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  201 

colony-owning  nations,  and  be  obliged  to  undertake, 
in  both  Hawaii  and  the  Philippines,  the  governance 
of  dependent  and  inferior  peoples  who  must  for  a 
long  time,  possibly  forever,  remain  in  a  state  of 
tutelage.  In  the  case  of  Hawaii,  absorption  by  the 
United  States  had  been  a  result  not  of  conquest  or 
coercion,  but  of  the  expressed  desire  of  the  inhabi 
tants.  The  Filipinos,  on  the  other  hand,  were  be 
lieved  to  aspire  to  independence,  and  might  be  ex 
pected  to  oppose  American  sovereignty  as  bitterly 
as  they  had  Spanish  domination.  If,  under  such 
circumstances,  the  islands  were  brought  under 
American  control,  against  the  consent  of  the  gov 
erned,  what  would  become  of  the  bed-rock  princi 
ples  on  which  the  United  States  had  been  founded  ? 
And,  in  any  event,  where  under  the  Constitution 
could  authority  be  had  for  the  establishment  of  a 
colonial  system,  for  the  inclusion  under  the  Ameri 
can  flag  of  dependencies  whose  inhabitants  were 
not  fit,  and  might  never  become  fit,  to  enjoy  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  full  American  citizenship? 

These  considerations,  reinforced  by  others  which 
it  is  not  necessary  to  detail  here,  led  a  certain  ele 
ment  of  the  American  people,  including  some  of  the 
most  thoughtful  and  public-spirited  citizens,  to 
denounce  the  idea  of  colonial  and  transmarine  ex- 


202     ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

pansion,  or,  as  they  preferred  to  call  it,  the  "im 
perialistic"  idea.  As  early  as  June  15  —  the  very 
day,  by  the  way,  that  the  House  of  Representatives 
was  voting  to  annex  Hawaii  —  a  mass-meeting  was 
held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  to  protest  against 
oversea  expansion;  and  a  resolution  was  adopted 
declaring  that  any  annexation  of  territory  as  a  result 
of  the  war  would  be  a  violation  of  national  faith. 
This  resolution,  of  course,  rested  on  the  avowed 
purpose  with  which  the  United  States  had  gone  to 
war  —  namely,  to  free  Cuba  from  the  yoke  of  Spain. 
"I  speak  not  of  forcible  annexation,"  President 
McKinley  had  said  in  his  1897  Message  to  Congress, 
"  because  that  is  not  to  be  thought  of,  and  under 
our  code  of  morality  that  would  be  criminal  aggres 
sion."  What  the  " anti-imperialists"  failed  to  appre 
ciate  was  the  fact  that  the  reference  here  was  to  the 
suspicion,  widely  entertained  abroad,  that  the  United 
States  meant  to  force  a  war  on  Spain  in  order  to 
acquire  Cuba  for  herself.  The  national  faith  was 
indeed  pledged  so  far  as  Cuba  was  concerned  —  but 
no  farther. 

None  the  less,  the  opponents  of  expansion  main 
tained  their  agitation.  Under  the  auspices  of  an 
" Anti-Imperialist  League,"  a  systematic  campaign 
was  begun  to  influence  public  opinion  against  the 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  203 

idea  of  embarking  on  a  colonial  policy,  and,  in 
especial,  against  holding  the  Philippines.  Repre 
sentative  citizens  like  John  Sherman,  Andrew  Car 
negie,  Thomas  Went  worth  Higginson,  Carl  Schurz, 
Charles  Eliot  Norton,  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
David  Starr  Jordan,  John  G.  Carlisle,  the  Rev. 
C.  H.  Parkhurst,  George  F.  Edmunds,  Samuel 
Bowles,  George  S.  Boutwell,  and  Edward  Atkinson 
joined  in  appeals  to  the  nation,  asserting  their 
belief  that  retention  of  the  Philippines  would  be 
"  inconsistent  with  the  principles  of  this  Republic, 
and  fraught  with  danger  to  its  peace  and  to  the  peace 
of  the  world. "  With  unpatriotic  fatuity,  some  of 
the  more  zealous  among  the  "anti-imperialists" 
even  went  so  far  as  to  oppose  a  colonial  policy  on 
the  ground  that  by  its  treatment  of  the  negroes,  the 
Indians,  and  the  native  Californians,  the  American 
nation  had  proved  itself  unfit  for  ruling  subject 
races.  And  so  soon  as  it  was  known  that  the  Govern 
ment  had  definitely  determined  to  retain  the  Phil 
ippines,  the  more  violent  opponents  of  expansion 
concentrated  their  wrath  on  the  person  of  one 
man,  President  McKinley,  whom  they  did  not 
hesitate  to  denounce  as  the  "crowning  hypocrite 
of  the  age"  and  "the  leader  of  the  imperialist 
frenzy." 


/'  v     rr  THE 

RSITY  )) 


204    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Now,  McKinley  was  no  hypocrite,  yet  undoubtedly 
the  "anti-imperialists"  were  right  in  regarding  him 
as  the  man  above  all  others  responsible  for  adding 
the  Philippines  to  the  American  domain.  From 
first  to  last  he  was  the  controlling  spirit  in  deciding 
the  policy  the  United  States  should  pursue.  But  in 
deciding  as  he  did,  he  was  thoroughly  conscientious. 
The  ethical  side  of  the  problem  was  ever  uppermost 
in  his  mind.  What  do  we  owe  to  ourselves  and 
what  do  we  owe  to  the  Filipinos?  There  were,  he 
clearly  saw,  several  courses  open  to  the  United 
States.  The  islands  might  be  retained,  temporarily 
or  in  perpetuity.  They  might  be  ceded  to  some 
European  Power,  or  to  Japan.  They  might  be 
returned  to  Spain,  in  whole  or  in  part.  Or  they 
might  be  turned  over  to  the  Filipinos.  Which  course 
would  it  be  right  and  proper  for  the  United  States 
to  adopt  ?  The  "anti-imperialists,"  as  we  have  seen, 
lost  no  time  in  deciding  that  retention,  at  any  rate, 
would  be  a  highly  improper  course.  McKinley, 
placed  as  he  was  in  a  position  of  the  greatest  respon 
sibility,  hesitated  to  imitate  them  in  leaping  at  a 
conclusion. 

For  a  while,  indeed,  he  had  little  opportunity  to 
attack  the  problem.  As  John  D.  Long,  his  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy,  grimly  said  in  a  conversation  with 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  205 

the  writer,  "We  were  too  busy  carrying  on  war  to 
think  much  about  the  Philippines."  And  for  this 
reason  the  signing  of  the  peace  protocol  found  the 
President  still  undecided.  Hence,  unlike  the  definite 
provisions  relating  to  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  the 
Philippine  clause  in  the  protocol  simply  read:  "The 
United  States  will  occupy  and  hold  the  city,  bay,  and 
harbor  of  Manila  pending  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty 
of  peace  which  shall  determine  the  control,  disposi 
tion,  and  government  of  the  Philippines."  In  the 
month  that  intervened  between  the  signing  of  the 
protocol  and  the  writing  of  the  preliminary  instruc 
tions  of  Messrs.  Day,  Davis,  Frye,  Gray,  and  Reid, 
the  American  peace  commissioners,  the  President 
doubtless  made  considerable  headway  in  solving 
the  stupendous  problem  before  him.  For  we  find 
him  instructing  the  commissioners  that  "the  United 
States  cannot  accept  less  than  the  cession  in  full 
right  and  sovereignty  of  the  island  of  Luzon."* 
But  he  was  still  far  from  satisfied  that  this  would 
adequately  meet  the  situation.  What  he  wanted, 
before  definitely  making  up  his  mind,  was  absolute 
and  exact  information  regarding  the  state  of  affairs 
in  the  Philippines. 

*" House  Document  No.   i,  Fifty-fifth  Congress,  Third  Session," 
p.  908. 


206    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

This  information  was  to  no  small  extent  supplied 
on  the  arrival  in  Washington  of  General  F.  V. 
Greene,  who  had  been  in  command  of  one  of  the 
expeditions  sent  to  assist  Dewey  in  capturing  and 
holding  Manila.  Besides  submitting  a  detailed 
report  to  the  President,  General  Greene  concisely 
summed  up  the  results  of  his  personal  investigations 
in  a  brief  memorandum,  in  which  he  declared  in 
part: 

"If  the  United  States  evacuate  these  islands, 
anarchy  and  civil  war  will  immediately  ensue  and 
lead  to  foreign  intervention.  The  insurgents  were 
furnished  arms  and  the  moral  support  of  the  navy 
prior  to  our  arrival,  and  we  cannot  ignore  obliga 
tions,  either  to  the  insurgents  or  to  foreign  nations, 
which  our  own  acts  have  imposed  upon  us.  The 
Spanish  Government  is  completely  demoralized,  and 
Spanish  power  is  dead  beyond  possibility  of  resur 
rection.  Spain  would  be  unable  to  govern  these 
islands  if  we  surrendered  them.  ...  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Filipinos  cannot  govern  the  country  with 
out  the  support  of  some  strong  nation.  They 
acknowledge  this  themselves,  and  say  their  desire  is 
for  independence  under  American  protection;  but 
they  have  only  vague  ideas  as  to  what  our  relative 
positions  would  be.  ...  "The  length  of  our  occu- 


Copyright,  1899,  by  Frances  B.  Johnston. 

GEORGE  DEVVEY 


WILLIAM   McKINLEY  207 

pation  would  depend  on  circumstances  as  developed 
in  the  future,  but  should  be  determined  solely  in  our 
discretion  without  obligation  to  or  consultation  with 
other  Powers.  This  plan  can  only  be  worked  out 
by  careful  study  by  the  Paris  Commission  [the 
American  peace  commissioners],  and  they  should 
have  advice  and  full  information  from  some  one  who 
has  been  here  during  our  occupation  and  thoroughly 
understands  the  situation.  It  is  not  understood  in 
America,  and  unless  properly  dealt  with  at  Paris  will 
inevitably  lead  to  future  complications  and  possibly 
war."* 

Testimony  to  the  same  effect  soon  came  from 
Paris,  where  the  American  peace  commissioners 
while  negotiating  the  first  clauses  of  the  treaty  gave 
hearings  to  American  officers  and  others  having  a 
first-hand  knowledge  of  Philippine  affairs.  Their  tes 
timony,  however,  did  not  at  once  produce  unanimity 
of  opinion  among  the  commissioners.  October  25 
they  cabled  to  Washington  statements  indicating 
that  Judge  Day  favored  occupation  of  only  a  part  of 
the  islands,  that  Senator  Gray  did  not  deem  it  wise 
to  take  the  Philippines  either  in  whole  or  in  part, 
and  that  Messrs.  Frye,  Davis,  and  Reid  agreed  in 

*"  Executive  Document  B,  Fifty-fifth  Congress,  Third  Session," 
Part  2,  pp.  374-75- 


208    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

advocating  retention  of  the  entire  archipelago.  With 
this  majority  view  the  President  was  by  now  in  hearty 
concurrence.  Back  flashed  a  despatch  to  Paris, 
clear-cut,  concise,  and  emphatic: 

"The  information  which  has  come  to  the  Presi 
dent  since  your  departure  convinces  him  that  the 
acceptance  of  the  cession  of  Luzon  alone,  leaving 
the  rest  of  the  islands  subject  to  Spanish  rule,  or 
to  be  the  subject  of  future  contention,  cannot  be 
justified  on  political,  commercial,  or  humanitarian 
grounds.  The  cession  must  be  of  the  whole  archi 
pelago  or  none.  The  latter  is  wholly  inadmissible, 
and  the  former  must  therefore  be  required.  The 
President  reaches  this  conclusion  after  most  thor 
ough  consideration  of  the  whole  subject,  and  is 
deeply  sensible  of  the  grave  responsibilities  it  will 
impose,  believing  that  this  course  will  entail  less 
trouble  than  any  other  and  besides  will  best  sub 
serve  the  interests  of  the  people  involved,  for  whose 
welfare  we  cannot  escape  responsibility.  —  HAY."* 

Thus,  in  a  few  words,  was  summed  up  the  result 
of  weary  weeks  of  anxious  deliberation.  Only  those 
who  knew  the  President  well  can  realize  the  mental 
and  spiritual  ordeal  through  which  he  passed  before 

*" House  Document  No.  i,  Fifty-fifth  Congress,  Third  Session," 
P-  935- 


WILLIAM  McKINLEY  209 

arriving  at  his  final  decision.  But  it  is  easy  to  appre 
ciate  how  greatly  he  was  cheered  and  fortified  by 
the  consciousness  that  he  could  count  on  the  support 
of  the  nation.  For  vehement  and  energetic  as  the 
" anti-imperialists"  were,  they  were  in  reality  a 
feeble  minority.  Public  sentiment  was  overwhelm 
ingly  in  favor  of  the  policy  which  in  the  end  was  held 
by  the  President  to  be  the  best,  the  wisest,  and  the 
most  honorable  the  United  States  could  adopt. 

But  it  is  important  to  note  that  in  trending  as 
it  did,  public  sentiment  was  inspired  by  mixed  mo 
tives.  The  ethical  considerations  which  may  fairly 
be  said  to  have  been  paramount  in  McKinley's  mind 
exercised  only  a  partial  influence  on  the  minds  of 
the  great  mass  of  Americans.  They,  there  can  be 
no  doubt,  were  largely  actuated  by  the  old-time 
instinct  for  expansion,  the  instinct  that  in  the  early 
days  led  their  forefathers  across  the  Alleghanies, 
across  the  Mississippi,  and  across  the  plains  until  at 
last  they  set  foot  on  the  shore  of  the  Pacific.  And 
there  was,  too,  a  commercial  motive,  the  motive  of 
utilizing  the  Philippines  as  an  entering  wedge  to  gain 
for  the  United  States  an  opening  in  the  still  un 
developed  markets  of  the  far  East.  Mixed  motives, 
in  truth,  partly  instinctive,  partly  selfish,  and  partly 
humanitarian,  but  combining  to  impel  the  great 


210    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Republic    along    the    true    path    of    destiny    and 
duty. 

And  so  it  came  about  that  after  Spain,  solaced 
by  the  payment  of  twenty  million  dollars,  had  finally 
consented  to  sign  away  her  rights  to  the  Philippines, 
the  peace  treaty  received  ratification  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  despite  the  stubborn  opposition  of 
the  "anti-imperialist"  forces.  With  the  exchange 
of  ratifications  Spain  abandoned  her  last  vestige  of 
sovereignty  in  the  New  World,  where  she  had  once 
lorded  it  supreme,  and  the  United  States  became 
the  acknowledged  possessor  of  the  Philippine  Islands, 
Porto  Rico,  and  Guam.  Since  then  only  two  terri 
torial  additions  have  been  made  -  -  Tutuila  and  the 
smaller  Samoan  islands  which  fell  to  the  United 
States  in  the  partition  of  1899,  and  the  ten-mile 
Canal  Zone  on  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  acquired  in 
1904.  It  would,  however,  be  folly  to  assert  that 
the  last  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  territorial 
growth  of  the  United  States  has  been  written.  The 
nation  is  still  young,  still  vigorous,  still  ambitious. 
Great  things  lie  before  it.  And  as  it  has  done  in 
the  past,  so  will  it  do  in  the  future  —  reach  out, 
extend,  grow. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HINTS   FOR  FURTHER  READING 

THERE  is  no  exhaustive  history  of  the  terri 
torial  growth  of  the  United  States.  Several  years 
ago  such  a  work  was  projected  by  Professors  Chan- 
ning  and  Hart,  of  Harvard  University,  but  for 
some  reason  it  was  not  written,  and  no  one  has 
since  essayed  the  task.  There  are,  however,  a 
number  of  books  sufficiently  detailed  to  prove 
useful  both  to  the  student  and  to  the  general 
reader. 

Perhaps  the  best  of  these  is  Willis  F.  Johnson's 
"A  Century  of  Expansion"  (1903).  Dr.  Johnson's 
point  of  view  is  that  of  a  student  who  apprehends 
clearly  the  forces  contributing  to  territorial  growth, 
and  if  his  book  is  disfigured  by  certain  unfortunate 
errors  in  detail,  and  is  further  marred  by  inade 
quate  appreciation  of  the  evidence  bearing  on  the 
policy  adopted  by  the  United  States  Government 
with  regard  to  the  acquisition  of  Texas,  Oregon, 
and  California,  it  is  nevertheless  helpfully  informa 
tive.  It  also  is  a  book  that  lends  itself  well  to  steady 


212    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

reading,  being  written  in  a  fluent,  attractive  style. 
Less  readable  but  distinctly  useful  are  Edmund  J. 
Carpenter's  "The  American  Advance"  (1903), 
William  A.  Howry's  "The  Territorial  Growth  of 
the  United  States"  (1902),  and  Oscar  P.  Austin's 
"Steps  in  the  Expansion  of  our  Territory"  (1903). 
Of  these,  Dr.  Mowry's  book  is  the  most  elaborate, 
but  it  is  written  largely  from  secondary  sources  and 
seldom  gets  down  to  the  heart  of  its  subject.  As 
one  critic  has  said:  "Dr.  Mowry  regards  our  terri 
torial  acquisitions  as  a  series  of  special  providences, 
and  upon  this  theory  contents  himself  with  the 
externals  of  negotiation,  without  making  any 
attempt  to  present  the  underlying  causes."  Edward 
BicknelPs  "The  Territorial  Acquisitions  of  the 
United  States"  (revised  edition,  1904)  is  to  be 
recommended  as  a  handy  little  pocket  treatise, 
clear,  concise,  and  as  a  rule  accurate. 

Of  a  somewhat  different  character  frorrv  any  of 
the  foregoing  is  Edwin  Erie  Sparks'  "The  Expan 
sion  of  the  American  People"  (1900).  Social  as 
well  as  —  and,  indeed,  more  than  —  territorial  ex 
pansion  is  the  subject  of  this  volume,  in  which  many 
novel  and  significant  facts  relating  to  the  growth 
of  the  Republic  are  presented  in  an  interesting  form, 
and  with  a  wealth  of  pictorial  illustration  that  adds 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       213 

not  a  little  to  the  value  of  the  book.  W.  E.  Griffis' 
"The  Romance  of  Conquest"  (1899)  similarly  in 
cludes  much  besides  the  story  of  territorial  growth, 
and  contains  chapters  on  the  Revolution,  the  war 
with  France,  the  naval  campaign  against  the  Bar- 
bary  corsairs,  the  War  of  1812,  and  the  Civil  War. 
Its  chief  interest  lies  in  its  emphasis  on  the  role 
played  by  the  Navy  in  promoting  national  de 
velopment.  The  diplomacy  of  expansion  may 
conveniently  be  studied  in  A.  B.  Hart's  "The 
Foundations  of  American  Foreign  Policy"  (1901), 
John  Bassett  Moore's  "American  Diplomacy" 
(1905),  and  John  W.  Foster's  "A  Century  of 
American  Diplomacy"  (1901).  With  these  might 
also  be  read,  as  embodying  clear-cut  views  of  the 
expansionistic  tendencies  of  the  present  era,  A.  R. 
Colquhoun's  "Greater  America"  (1904),  and  A.  C. 
Coolidge's  "The  United  States  as  a  World  Power" 
(1908).  The  various  territorial  treaties,  up  to  and 
including  the  Alaska  Purchase,  will  be  found  in 
"Treaties  and  Conventions  concluded  between  the 
United  States  and  Other  Powers,"  published  as 
"Senate  Executive  Document  No.  47,  Forty-Eighth 
Congress,  Second  Session." 

Turning  to  the  literature  of  the  early  westward 
movement,  the  filling  up  of  the  Middle  West  under 


214    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

the  leadership  of  Daniel  Boone,  George  Rogers 
Clark,  John  Sevier,  and  their  fellow  pioneers,  we 
find  three  general  works  of  outstanding  importance. 
The  most  scholarly  and  complete  are  Justin  Winsor's 
two  volumes,  "The  Mississippi  Basin"  (1895),  an^ 
"The  Westward  Movement"  (1897).  The  first 
surveys  in  painstaking  fashion  the  struggle  between 
France  and  England  from  1697  to  1763  for  posses 
sion  of  the  Middle  West,  while  the  second  reviews 
the  history  of  the  same  section  in  the  forma 
tive  period  of  its  colonization  from  1763  to  1798. 
No  one  desiring  thorough  knowledge  of  the  events 
transpiring  in  the  Middle  West  during  the  time 
of  its  exploration  and  first  settlement  should  ignore 
Dr.  Winsor's  volumes.  But  it  must  be  said  that  they 
form  rather  difficult  reading,  and  it  is  a  pleasure  to 
be  able  to  supplement  them  with  the  lively  narra 
tive  contained  in  Theodore  Roosevelt's  "The  Win 
ning  of  the  West"  (four- volume  edition,  1889-96, 
six- volume  edition,  1900).  Later  research  has 
shown  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  error  on  some  important 
points,  but  has  also  served  to  emphasize  the  fact 
that  he  has  signally  enlarged  our  knowledge  of  the 
pioneering  movement.  The  mastery  of  details  he 
displays,  the  clearness  of  insight,  and  the  ability  to 
marshal  his  facts  and  present  his  conclusions  in  a 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       215 

graphic  and  convincing  way,  combine  to  place  his 
" Winning  of  the  West"  among  the  really  noteworthy 
American  historical  productions. 

The  westward  movement  may  also  be  studied  to 
advantage  by  the  aid  of  the  "  American  Nation " 
co-operative  history  of  the  United  States  (1905-08), 
though  here  it  is  necessary  to  follow  it  through  a  suc 
cession  of  volumes,  namely:  " France  in  America," 
by  R.  G.  Thwaites;  "  Preliminaries  of  the  Revo 
lution,"  by  G.  E.  Howard;  "The  American  Revo 
lution,"  by  C.  H.  Van  Tyne;  "The  Confederation 
and  the  Constitution,"  by  A.  C.  McLaughlin; 
"The  Federalist  System,"  by  J.  S.  Bassett;  "The 
Jeffersonian  System,"  by  E.  Channing;  and,  for  a 
slightly  later  period,  "The  Rise  of  American  Na 
tionality,"  by  K.  C.  Babcock,  and  "The  Rise  of  the 
New  West,"  by  F.  J.  Turner.  In  making  use  of 
this  work,  the  student  is  advised  at  all  times  to 
consult  the  analytic  index  that  forms  its  last  volume. 
Among  works  of  minor  importance,  less  scholarly 
and  critical  but  still  useful,  may  be  mentioned  "A 
History  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  from  its  Discovery 
to  the  End  of  Foreign  Domination"  (1903),  by 
John  R.  Spears  and  Alonzo  H.  Clark,  and  James  K. 
Hosmer's  "A  Short  History  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley"  (1901). 


216    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

For  those  who  wish  to  go  into  the  subject  in  still 
greater  detail,  a  vast  fund  of  literature  is  available 
in  the  early  State  histories  of  Tennessee,  Kentucky, 
and  Ohio;  memoirs  and  reminiscences  of  the  pio 
neers,  and  later  publications  dealing  with  special 
aspects  of  the  westward  movement.  Not  all  of  the 
early  State  histories  are  equally  valuable,  and  all  of 
them  have  to  be  read  with  considerable  caution,  but 
the  fact  remains  that  they  constitute  our  sole  source 
of  information  on  many  questions  of  the  greatest 
significance.  In  studying  the  history  of  Tennessee 
the  reader  will  find  particularly  helpful  J.  G.  M. 
Ramsey's  "The  Annals  of  Tennessee"  (1853),  and 
A.  W.  Putnam's  " History  of  Middle  Tennessee" 
(1859).  The  early  history  of  Kentucky  is  told  from 
different  angles  in  H.  Marshall's  "The  History  of 
Kentucky"  (1824),  Mann  Butler's  "A  History  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Kentucky"  (1836),  and  Lewis 
Collins'  "History  of  Kentucky"  (revised  edition, 
edited  and  enlarged  by  his  son,  Richard  H.  Collins, 
1878).  Collins'  work  is  really  encyclopedic,  and 
every  subsequent  writer  on  Kentucky  is  greatly  in 
debted  to  it.  So,  too,  with  Henry  Howe's  "His 
torical  Collections  of  Ohio"  (1847),  an^  James  H. 
Perkins'  "Annals  of  the  West"  (1846),  an  exhaustive 
compilation  covering  the  entire  history  of  the  Mis- 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING         217 

sissippi  Valley  from  the  coming  of  the  Spaniards  to 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  publi 
cations  of  the  Filson  Club,  of  Louisville,  Kentucky, 
already  cited  in  the  course  of  the  present  work, 
should  also  be  mentioned  for  the  light  they  throw 
on  the  social,  economic,  and  political  history  of  the 
first  trans-Alleghany  pioneers. 

The  life,  customs,  and  manners  of  these  adven 
turous  men  and  women  are  admirably  depicted  in 
Joseph  Doddridge's  "  Notes  on  the  Settlement  and 
Indian  Wars  of  the  Western  Parts  of  Virginia  and 
Pennsylvania  from  1763  until  1783  inclusive,  with 
a  View  of  the  State  of  Society  and  Manners  of  the 
First  Settlers  of  the  Western  Country"  (1824).  As 
a  description  of  the  home  life  of  the  settlers  there  is 
nothing  comparable  with  this  work.  The  more 
adventurous  side  of  their  existence  may  be  studied  in 
such  books  as  Wills  de  Hass'  "  History  of  the  Early 
Settlement  and  Indian  Wars  of  Western  Virginia" 
(1851),  A.  C.  Withers'  " Chronicles  of  Border  War 
fare"  (1831,  or,  better,  in  the  edition  of  1895,  anno 
tated  by  R.  G.  Thwaites),  Timothy  Flint's  "Indian 
Wars  of  the  West"  (1833),  and  John  Alexander 
McClung's"  Sketches  of  Western  Ad  venture"  (1832). 
All  of  these,  judged  by  the  strict  standards  of  modern 
history  writing,  are  lamentably  weak  in  that  they 


2i8    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

rely  on  tradition  rather  than  documentary  evidence; 
yet  even  so,  they  preserve  for  us  much  that  would 
otherwise  have  been  lost. 

Passing  from  the  literature  of  the  early  West  in 
general  to  the  literature  dealing  particularly  with 
the  first  great  Westerner,  Daniel  Boone,  a  foremost 
place  must  be  accorded  to  R.  G.  Thwaites'  "Daniel 
Boone"  (1902).  In  writing  this  biography  Dr. 
Thwaites  enjoyed  the  advantage  of  being  in  a  po 
sition  to  utilize  the  great  mass  of  manuscript  material 
collected  by  the  late  Lyman  C.  Draper,  and  as  a 
result  has  been  able  to  incorporate  in  his  book  many 
facts  unknown  to  earlier  biographers.  His  work, 
however,  is  by  no  means  exhaustive,  and  it  will  be 
well  to  supplement  it  by  reading  John  M.  Peck's 
"Life  of  Daniel  Boone"  (1847),  published  as  vol. 
XIII  of  Sparks'  "Library  of  American  Biography, 
New  Series,"  which  is  still  a  valuable  book  notwith 
standing  the  fact  that  it  was  written  so  long  ago. 
Boone's  so-called  "autobiography,"  one  of  the  great 
est  curiosities  in  American  literature  and  utilized 
by  all  subsequent  writers,  is  contained  in  John 
Filson's  "The  Discovery,  Settlement,  and  Present 
State  of  Kentucky"  (1784),  and  Gilbert  Imlay's 
"A  Topographical  Description  of  the  Western  Ter 
ritory  of  North  America"  (1793).  A  good  deal  of 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING        219 

sound  information  bearing  on  Boone  will  be  found 
in  G.  W.  Ranck's  "  Boonesborough,  its  Founding, 
Pioneer  Struggles,  Indian  Experiences,  Transylvania 
Days,  and  Revolutionary  Annals"  (1901),  published 
as  No.  1 6  of  the  Filson  Club  publications.  Timothy 
Flint's  " Biographical  Memoir  of  Daniel  Boone" 
(1841)  and  W.  H.  Bogart's  "  Daniel  Boone  and  the 
Hunters  of  Kentucky"  (1874)  are  uncritical  works, 
which,  however,  in  some  respects  repay  perusal. 
For  a  general  bibliography  of  the  literature  on 
Boone,  consult  W.  H.  Miner's  "  Contribution  toward 
a  bibliography  of  writings  concerning  Daniel  Boone" 
(1901.)  It  might  perhaps  be  added  that  the  present 
writer  has  in  preparation  a  book,  "Daniel  Boone 
and  the  Wilderness  Road,"  designed  to  serve  the 
double  purpose  of  a  biography  of  Boone  and  a  study 
of  the  opening  up  of  the  early  West. 

The  Louisiana  Purchase  forms  the  subject  of  a 
number  of  works,  and  has  naturally  been  given 
much  space  in  general  histories.  A  masterly  ac 
count  is  found  in  the  first  two  volumes  of  Henry 
Adams'  "History  of  the  United  States  of  America 
during  the  Administrations  of  Jefferson  and  Madi 
son"  (1889-91),  written  from  sources  hitherto  un 
touched,  thoroughly  scholarly,  and  marred  only  by 
an  obvious  prejudice  against  Jefferson  and  Madison. 


220    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

As  correctives  of  this  prejudice,  and  as  being 
in  themselves  able  and  informative,  the  reader  is 
referred  to  the  accounts  contained  in  Edward 
Channing's  "The  Jeffersonian  System"  (1906),  pub 
lished  as  vol.  XII  of  the  "  American  Nation,"  James 
Schouler's  "  History  of  the  United  States  of  America 
under  the  Constitution,"  vol.  II  (1882),  and  John  B. 
McMaster's  "  History  of  the  People  of  the  United 
States,"  vols.  II,  III  (1885,  1892).  Among  works 
dealing  more  especially  with  the  Purchase  the  stu 
dent  will  find  considerable  information  of  value  in 
Ripley  Hitchcock's  "The  Louisiana  Purchase  and 
the  Exploration,  Early  History,  and  Building  of  the 
West"  (1903),  and  F.  A.  Ogg's  "The  Opening  of 
the  Mississippi"  (1904).  In  Francis  Barbe  Marbois* 
"History  of  Louisiana"  (1830),  the  story  of  the  Pur 
chase  is  told  from  the  point  of  view  of  one  of  the 
French  negotiators,  while  the  influence  of  Napoleon 
in  promoting  the  sale  is  emphasized  in  James  K. 
Hosmer's  "The  History  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase" 
(1902).  W.  J.  M.  Sloane's  "The  World  Aspects 
of  the  Louisiana  Purchase"  (in  The  American  His 
torical  Review,  vol.  IX.,  pp.  507-521),  and  C.  F. 
Robertson's  "The  Louisiana  Purchase  in  its  influ 
ence  upon  the  American  System"  (in  the  American 
Historical  Association's  "Papers,"  vol.  I,  no.  4), 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING        221 

are    two    stimulating   essays   which   may   well   be 
read. 

Much  material  is  available  for  documentary  study 
by  those  interested  in  going  that  far  into  the  subject. 
The  reports,  letters,  etc.,  which  passed  in  the  course 
of  the  negotiations  are  contained  in  "American  State 
Papers  —  Foreign  Relations,"  vol.  IV,  and  "  Ameri 
can  State  Papers  —  Public  Lands,"  vol.  I.  In  the 
"Old  South  Leaflets,"  No.  103,  is  an  abstract  of 
Louisiana  Purchase  documents  in  the  offices  of  the 
departments  of  State  and  of  the  Treasury.  "House 
Document  No.  430,  Fifty-Seventh  Congress,  Second 
Session,"  contains  "State  Papers  and  Correspond 
ence  bearing  upon  the  Purchase  of  the  Territory 
of  Louisiana."  Consult  also  J.  D.  Richardson's 
"Compilation  of  the  Messages  and  Papers  of  the 
Presidents"  (1896-99),  "The  Writings  of  Thomas 
Jefferson"  (H.  A.  Washington's  edition,  1853-4,  and 
P.  L.  Ford's  edition,  1892-99),  and  "The  Writings 
of  James  Monroe"  (S.  M.  Hamilton's  edition, 
1898-1903). 

Of  the  many  biographies  of  Jefferson,  Henry 
S.  Randall's  three- volume  "The  Life  of  Thomas 
Jefferson"  (1858)  is  still  regarded  as  the  standard 
work,  notwithstanding  the  animus  it  displays  against 
Hamilton  and  the  Federalists.  George  Tucker's 


222    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

"Life  of  Thomas  Jefferson"  (1837)  *s  chiefly  valu 
able  as  giving  a  Virginia  view  of  the  great  Virginian, 
and  as  containing  much  information  from  local 
sources  not  found  in  other  works.  James  Parton's 
"The  Life  of  Thomas  Jefferson"  (1874)  is  more 
readable  than  either  Randall's  or  Tucker's  biog 
raphy,  but  otherwise  is  not  so  satisfactory;  and  the 
same  verdict  must  be  rendered  with  respect  to 
Thomas  E.  Watson's  "Thomas  Jefferson"  (1903). 
However,  in  J.  T.  Morse,  Jr.'s  "Thomas  Jeffer 
son"  (1883)  we  have  a  book  by  a  modern  biogra 
pher  who,  although  censoriously  critical,  appreciates 
Jefferson's  intense  Americanism,  and  his  real  po 
sition  as  the  master-mind  in  the  Purchase  of 
Louisiana.  Another  biography  which,  for  all  its 
sketchiness,  deserves  to  be  drawn  to  the  student's 
attention  is  Henry  C.  Merwin's  "Thomas  Jeffer 
son"  (1901),  published  in  the  excellent  "Riverside 
Biographical  Series." 

There  are  very  few  books  dealing  exclusively,  or 
even  primarily,  with  the  acquisition  of  Florida,  but 
among  them  is  one  that  all  future  writers  and  in 
vestigators  must  reckon  with.  This  is  H.  B.  Fuller's 
"The  Purchase  of  Florida"  (1906),  a  work  which, 
whatever  may  be  thought  of  its  conclusions,  is  indis 
pensable  for  the  compactness  and  thoroughness  with 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       223 

which  it  presents  the  evidence  relating  to  its  most 
intricate  subject.  Apart  from  Mr.  Fuller's  scholarly 
monograph,  the  student  cannot  do  better  than  fol 
low  the  narrative  of  events  as  given  in  the  general 
histories  of  Henry  Adams,  James  Schouler,  and 
John  B.  McMaster,  cited  above.  Adams,  it  should 
be  noted,  does  not  carry  the  story  beyond  1817,  but 
so  far  as  he  goes  is  more  detailed  than  either  Schouler 
or  McMaster.  The  documentary  evidence  upon 
which  all  of  these  writers  rely  is  contained  largely 
in  the  "American  State  Papers  —  Foreign  Rela 
tions,"  vol.  IV,  giving  the  official  papers  bearing  on 
the  diplomacy  of  the  acquisition  and  the  events  of 
Jackson's  second  invasion  of  Florida.  The  docu 
ments  relating  to  the  revolution  in  West  Florida  and 
its  occupation  by  the  United  States  are  in  the  third 
volume  of  the  same  invaluable  compilation.  Other 
material  of  importance  is  found  in  John  Quincy 
Adams'  "Memoirs"  (1874-77),  and  in  the  writings 
of  Madison  and  Monroe;  also  in  Thomas  Hart 
Benton's  "Thirty  Years'  View"  (1854-57),  which 
contains,  as  was  stated  in  the  Florida  chapter, 
Jackson's  defense  of  his  conduct. 

For  completeness,  candor,  and  appreciation  of 
historical  values,  none  of  the  later  biographies  of 
Jackson  can  claim  superiority  to  James  Parton's 


224    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

"Life  of  Andrew  Jackson"  (1860).  Written  in 
three  massive  volumes,  each  evidencing  prolonged 
and  careful  research,  Parton's  monumental  work 
appeals  almost  equally  to  the  student  whose  sole 
interest  is  in  getting  at  the  facts,  and  to  the  reader 
chiefly  concerned  in  finding  the  facts  presented  in 
an  interesting  way.  Parton's  one  great  fault,  in  the 
opinion  of  some  critics,  is  an  undue  severity  of  judg 
ment  when  weighing  the  words  and  deeds  of  his 
hero;  and  quite  recently  two  large  biographies  have 
been  written  for  the  express  purpose  of  compelling 
a  more  favorable  opinion.  These  are  A.  S.  Colyar's 
"Life  and  Times  of  Andrew  Jackson;  Soldier, 
Statesman,  President"  (1904),  and  A.  C.  Buell's 
"History  of  Andrew  Jackson;  Pioneer,  Patriot, 
Soldier,  Politician,  President"  (1904).  Unfortu 
nately,  both  show  a  pronounced  tendency  to  hero- 
worship,  and  it  would  not  be  unfair  to  describe  the 
Colyar  biography,  which  is  the  work  of  a  Tennes 
see  lawyer,  as  an  unusually  elaborate  piece  of  special 
pleading.  Mr.  Buell's  book  is  better,  being  well 
written  and  rich  in  incident  and  anecdote.  Other 
biographies  possessing  features  that  make  them 
helpful  are  W.  G.  Sumner's  "Andrew  Jackson" 
(1899),  which,  by  the  way,  is  prefaced  by  a  splenetic 
introduction  from  the  pen  of  J.  T.  Morse,  Jr.,  who 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       225 

sees  in  Jackson  little  more  than  a  demagogue  suc 
ceeding  because  he  pleased  the  multitude;  Cyrus  T. 
Brady's  "The  True  Andrew  Jackson"  (1906),  and 
William  Garrott  Brown's  " Andrew  Jackson"  (1900). 
This  last,  although  one  of  the  smallest,  is  perhaps 
the  best  of  the  minor  "lives"  of  Jackson,  giving 
the  essentials  in  a  most  attractive  form  and  in  a 
thoroughly  judicial  spirit. 

The  leading  authority  on  the  Texas  Question  is 
George  P.  Garrison,  whose  "Texas"  (1902),  "West 
ward  Extension"  (1906),  and  "The  First  Stage  of 
the  Movement  for  the  Annexation  of  Texas"  (in 
The  American  Historical  Review,  vol.  X,  pp.  72- 
96)  contain  the  latest  words  of  scientific  historical 
investigation  with  regard  to  this  ancient  theme  of 
controversy.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Dr. 
Garrison  has  effectually  disposed  of  the  long  preva 
lent  idea  that  the  acquisition  of  Texas  was  from  first 
to  last  the  work  of  the  Southern  "slavocracy."  This 
idea  colors  and  distorts  the  Texas  sections  of  Her 
mann  E.  Von  Hoist's  "Constitutional  and  Political 
History  of  the  United  States,"  vol.  II  (1879),  and 
Professor  Schouler's  already  mentioned  "  History  of 
the  United  States  of  America  under  the  Constitution," 
which  are  nevertheless  extremely  valuable.  John  B. 
McMaster's  "History  of  the  People  of  the  United 


226    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

States/*  vol.  VI  (1906),  is  especially  helpful  for  the 
evidence  it  adduces  showing  how  widespread  was 
the  enthusiasm  aroused  in  the  United  States  by 
the  uprising  of  the  Texans  to  win  their  independence. 
The  most  exhaustive  treatment  of  the  subject  is 
found,  however,  in  the  Texas  volume  of  H.  H. 
Bancroft's  "  History  of  the  Pacific  States  of  North 
America"  (1882-90),  and  with  this  should  be  studied 
Dudley  G.  Wooten's  "  Comprehensive  History  of 
Texas"  (1898),  which  contains  a  reprint  of  Hender 
son  Yoakum's  "  History  of  Texas  from  its  First 
Settlement  in  1685  to  its  Annexation  by  the  United 
States  in  1846."  Anson  Jones'  "  Memoranda  and 
Official  Correspondence  relating  to  the  Republic  of 
Texas"  (1859),  is  also  valuable.  Jones  was  the 
last  President  of  Texas,  and  wrote  from  long  and 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  country,  in  which  he  had 
been  a  resident  since  1833.  G.  T.  Fulmore's  "The 
Annexation  of  Texas  and  the  Mexican  War"  (in  the 
Texas  State  Historical  Association's  Quarterly,  vol. 
V,  pp.  28-48)  is  a  paper  of  corrective  value  as  to 
the  truth  about  annexation  and  slavery's  connection 
with  the  early  colonization  of  Texas.  Another  phase 
of  Texas  history  is  strikingly  exhibited  in  J.  L. 
Worley's  "The  Diplomatic  Relations  of  England  and 
the  Republic  of  Texas"  (in  the  Texas  State  His- 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       227 

torical  Association's  Quarterly,  vol.  X,  pp.  1-40). 
Contemporary  opinion  of  the  annexation  movement, 
and  the  views  entertained  by  the  leaders  for  and 
against  annexation,  may  be  studied  at  first  hand  in 
such  works  as  Thomas  Hart  Benton's  "  Thirty 
Years'  View,"  John  Quincy  Adams'  "  Memoirs," 
and  the  writings  and  speeches  of  Daniel  Webster, 
Henry  Clay,  and  John  C.  Calhoun. 

Until  Henry  G.  Bruce  published  his  "Life  of 
General  Houston"  (1891),  there  was  nothing  ap 
proaching  an  adequate  biography  of  Houston.  C. 
Edwards  Lester's  "Sam  Houston  and  His  Republic" 
(1846),  and  "Life  and  Achievements  of  Sam  Houston, 
Hero  and  Statesman"  (1883),  were,  and  still  are,  use 
ful,  but  require  to  be  read  with  great  critical  caution. 
Particular  interest  attaches  to  the  1846  book,  as 
having  been  written  under  the  watchful  eye  of 
Houston  himself,  in  his  private  room  at  the  National 
Hotel  in  Washington.  But  it  remained  for  Mr. 
Bruce  to  give  us  the  first  really  worthy  account  of 
the  character  and  career  of  the  man  who  "made 
Texas."  Since  then  another  excellent  biography  has 
appeared  in  Alfred  M.  Williams'  "Sam  Houston 
and  the  War  of  Independence  in  Texas,"  although, 
strictly  speaking,  this  is  a  history  of  the  Texan  War 
rather  than  a  study  of  the  great  commander  of  the 


228    ROMANCE   OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

Texans.  Apart  from  these  four  books,  there  is 
really  nothing  with  which  the  student  of  Houston's 
life  need  concern  himself. 

Coming  to  the  literature  on  the  occupation  of 
Oregon,  we  are  similarly  confronted  with  the  fact 
that  there  are  comparatively  few  books  upon  which 
reliance  may  be  placed.  The  best-known  histories 
of  Oregon  —  W.  H.  Gray's  "  A  History  of  Oregon  " 
(1870),  and  William  Barrows'  "Oregon"  (1883)- 
are  practically  worthless,  being  written  from  a  nar 
row,  partizan  point  of  view.  It  was  in  Gray's  book 
that  the  Whitman  legend  was  first  formally  foisted 
on  the  public,  to  survive  to  the  present  day  despite 
the  corrective  evidence  presented  in  Edward  G. 
Bourne's  "The  Legend  of  Marcus  Whitman"  (in 
his  "Essays  in  Historical  Criticism,"  1901),  and 
William  I.  Marshall's  "History  vs.  The  Whitman 
Saved  Oregon  Story"  (1904).  To  find  a  general 
work  treating  the  Oregon  Question  fully,  sanely,  and 
without  prejudice,  it  is  necessary  to  turn  to  the 
"North-West  Coast"  and  "Oregon"  volumes  of 
H.  H.  Bancroft's  "History  of  the  Pacific  States  of 
North  America."  Here  every  phase  of  the  subject 
is  examined  in  detail,  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  true 
historical  investigator.  Gustavus  Hines'  "Oregon: 
Its  History,  Condition,  and  Prospects"  (1851)  has 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING         229 

defects  similar  to  those  of  Gray  and  Barrows,  but 
is  interesting  as  a  first-hand  account  of  the  experi 
ences  of  one  of  the  early  settlers,  Hines  having  gone 
to  Oregon  as  early  as  1839.  Another  early  settler  to 
place  his  experiences  on  paper  is  Peter  H.  Burnett, 
who,  in  his  "  Recollections  and  Opinions  of  an  Old 
Pioneer"  (1880),  gives  a  vivid  account  of  life  in 
both  Oregon  and  California  in  the  forties.  It  will 
also  be  well  to  read  "The  Oregon  Trail"  (edition 
of  1901),  by  Francis  Parkman,  the  distinguished 
historian  who  took  the  long  trail  to  the  Oregon 
country  in  1846.  The  diplomacy  and  legislation  re 
lating  to  Oregon  may  conveniently  be  studied  in 
Bancroft's  "Oregon"  volumes,  in  Benton's  "Thirty 
Years'  View,"  in  the  general  works  on  American 
diplomacy  enumerated  above,  and  in  the  writings 
of  Webster  and  Calhoun,  particularly  vols.  IX,  XI, 
and  XII  of  the  "Writings  and  Speeches  of  Daniel 
Webster"  (1903),  and  vol.  V  of  the  "Works  of  John 
C.  Calhoun"  (1853-55). 

There  are  three  brief  but  useful  biographies  of 
Benton.  Taken  together,  they  afford  a  remarkably 
complete  view  of  this  great  expansionist's  per 
sonality  and  achievements.  Theodore  Roosevelt's 
"Thomas  Hart  Benton"  (1887),  prepared  for  the 
always  informative  "American  Statesmen"  series  of 


230    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

biographies,  is  an  appreciative  study  written  with 
its  author's  characteristic  ease  and  vigor  of  expres 
sion.  W.  M.  Meigs,  in  "The  Life  of  Thomas  Hart 
Benton"  (1904),  deals  with  his  subject  in  an  interest 
ing,  judicious,  and  sympathetic  way.  Joseph  M. 
Rogers,  in  "Thomas  H.  Benton"  (1905),  is  less 
scholarly  and  critical  than  either  Mr.  Roosevelt  or 
Mr.  Meigs,  but  brings  out  with  especial  clearness 
Benton's  fine  idealism  and  the  reasons  for  his  long 
continued  popularity  with  his  constituents.  In  study 
ing  Benton  as  an  expansionist  it  also  is  desirable 
to  read  the  biographical  sketch  contributed  by  his 
daughter,  Mrs.  Fremont,  to  her  husband's  "Me 
moirs  of  My  Life"  (1887),  a  sketch  devoted  to  an 
explanation  of  how  Benton  first  became  interested 
in  the  westward  movement  and  his  activities  in 
connection  therewith.  Interesting  glimpses  of  Ben- 
ton  are  further  revealed  in  Mrs.  Fremont's  "  Sou 
venirs  of  my  Time"  (1887),  a  book  worth  reading 
even  without  reference  to  its  historical  interest. 

The  Mexican  War  may  be  studied  in  detail  in 
the  "Mexico,"  "California,"  and  " Arizona  and 
New  Mexico"  volumes  of  Bancroft's  stupendous 
work;  or,  more  briefly,  in  Professor  Schouler's  "His 
tory  of  the  United  States  of  America  under  the  con 
stitution,"  and  George  P.  Garrison's  "Westward 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       231 

Extension,"  which  serves  as  a  useful  corrective  to 
Professor  Schouler's  insistence  on  the  "wolf  and 
lamb"  point  of  view.  Charles  H.  Owen's  "The 
Justice  of  the  Mexican  War"  (1908)  goes  to  the 
opposite  extreme,  but  contains  material  not  readily 
accessible  elsewhere,  and  should  by  no  means  be 
overlooked.  Among  earlier  books  W.  W.  Jay's  "A 
Review  of  the  Causes  and  Consequences  of  the 
Mexican  War"  (1849)  still  repays  perusal,  notwith 
standing  its  author's  extreme  partizanship.  A.  A. 
Livermore's  "The  War  with  Mexico  Reviewed" 
(1850)  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  contemporaneous 
differences  of  opinion  regarding  the  war.  The 
military  operations  are  well  described  in  R.  S. 
Ripley's  "The  War  with  Mexico,"  but  see  also 
U.  S.  Grant's  "Personal  Memoirs"  (1885-86), 
Marcus  J.  Wright's  "General  Scott"  (1894),  and 
O.  O.  Howard's  "General  Taylor"  (1892). 

Bancroft  is  again  the  leading  authority  when  we 
pass  to  the  literature  having  to  do  with  the  conquest 
of  California,  the  subject  being  exhaustively  ex 
amined  in  the  " California"  volumes  of  his  "His 
tory  of  the  Pacific  States  of  North  America."  In 
the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  however,  he  is 
scarcely  fair  in  his  treatment  of  Fremont  and  the 
Bear  Flag  revolutionists,  and  the  same  criticism 


232    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

applies  to  Theodore  H.  HittelPs  four- volume  "  His 
tory  of  California"  (1886-1897),  and  Josiah  Royce's 
" California "  (1886).  Nevertheless,  Bancroft,  Hit- 
tell,  and  Royce  are  indispensable  to  the  student,  each 
making  distinct  contributions  to  our  knowledge  of 
the  events  of  the  conquest.  Dr.  Garrison's  "West 
ward  Extension"  is  also  useful,  although  far  less 
space  is  devoted  to  the  winning  of  California  than  to 
the  annexation  of  Texas.  Other  material  of  im 
portance  is  found  in  works  devoted  primarily  to  a 
recital  of  the  achievements  of  Fremont,  such  as 
Charles  W.  Upham's  "Life,  Explorations,  and  Public 
Services  of  John  Charles  Fremont"  (1856),  John 
Bigelow's  "Memoir  of  the  Life  and  Public  Services 
of  John  C.  Fremont"  (1856),  and  S.  M.  Smucker's 
"Life  of  Fremont"  (1856). 

The  reader  must  bear  in  mind,  however,  that  if 
the  tendency  among  later  historians  is  unduly  to 
minimize  Fremont's  share  in  the  conquest  of  Cali 
fornia,  these  earlier  writers  exaggerate  it.  Yet  we 
must  go  back  to  them  for  a  biography,  as  no  modern 
work  has  appeared  to  supersede  them.  For  a  similar 
reason,  so  far  as  knowledge  of  Fremont's  explora 
tions  is  concerned  we  are  mainly  dependent  on  Fre 
mont's  own  account,  as  given  in  his  "Report  of  the 
Exploring  Expedition  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  in 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       233 

the  Year  1842,  and  to  Oregon  and  California  in  the 
Years  1843-44."  This  was  first  issued  in  1845  as  a 
Government  publication,  but  the  following  year  was 
brought  out  in  the  usual  way  by  a  New  York  pub 
lishing  house,  and  rapidly  passed  into  several  editions. 
It  is  a  work  not  merely  of  autobiographical  but  of 
distinct  geographical  and  historical  usefulness,  and 
is  among  the  most  important  of  early  books  on  the 
far  West.  Fremont's  "Memoirs  of  My  Life," 
published  more  than  forty  years  later,  is  likewise 
deserving  of  study,  together  with  Mrs.  Fremont's 
already  mentioned  "Souvenirs  of  my  Time." 

There  is  no  single  work  affording  a  complete 
account  of  the  Alaska  Purchase;  and,  indeed,  as 
stated  in  the  text,  such  an  account  is  nowhere  to  be 
had,  since  the  seal  of  secrecy  has  not  been  altogether 
removed  even  at  this  late  day.  But  a  sufficiently 
clear  understanding  is  possible  with  the  aid  of  cer 
tain  books  and  documents,  among  which  the  most 
important  are  John  Bassett  Moore's  "A  Digest  of 
International  Law"  (1906),  "Proceedings  of  the 
Alaskan  Boundary  Tribunal"  (1903),  published  as 
"Senate  Document  No.  162,  Fifty-Eighth  Congress, 
Second  Session";  the  "Alaska"  volume  of  H.  H. 
Bancroft's  "History  of  the  Pacific  States  of  North 
America,"  Frederic  Bancroft's  "William  H.  Seward" 


234    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

(1900),  Frederick  W.  Seward's  "Seward  at  Wash 
ington,  as  Senator  and  Secretary  of  State"  (1891), 
E.  L.  Pierce's  "Memoir  and  Letters  of  Charles 
Sumner"  (1877-93),  and  "The  Works  of  Charles 
Sumner"  (1870-83). 

Professor  Moore's  "A  Digest  of  International 
Law"  was  started  as  a  revision  of  Wharton's  "Di 
gest,"  but  is  practically  a  new  work,  and  no  student 
of  American  foreign  policy  can  afford  to  be  without 
it.  Its  Alaska  material  is  contained  chiefly  in  vols. 
I,  III,  and  V;  but  consult  the  index.  Frederick  W. 
Seward's  "Seward  at  Washington"  derives  its  value 
from  the  fact  that  the  author  was  closely  associated 
with  his  father  during  the  later  years  of  Seward's 
public  life.  Frederic  Bancroft's  "William  H.  Sew 
ard,"  in  addition  to  throwing  new  light  on  the 
Alaska  treaty,  is  far  and  away  the  best  biography  of 
Seward  that  has  yet  been  written.  In  fact,  it  is  one 
of  the  best  among  American  historical  biographies. 
T.  H.  Lothrop's  "William  Henry  Seward"  is  briefer 
and  less  searching,  and  contains  uncommonly  little 
about  the  Alaska  Purchase,  but  is  useful  for  those 
who  lack  the  time  or  the  opportunity  to  use  the  larger 
works.  Biographical  material  of  the  greatest  value 
is  also  available  in  "The  Life  of  William  H.  Seward, 
with  Selections  from  his  Works"  (1855),  edited  by 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING        235 

George  E.  Baker;  and  in  Mr.  Baker's  edition  of 
"The  Works  of  William  Henry  Seward"  (1853-84). 
The  war  with  Spain  and  the  acquisition  of  oversea 
possessions  have  already  been  productive  of  an  ex 
tensive  literature.  H.  H.  Bancroft's  "The  New 
Pacific"  (1900)  goes  into  both  subjects  in  consider 
able  detail,  taking  a  comprehensive  and  careful  sur 
vey  of  the  insular  acquisitions  in  Pacific  waters,  and 
examining  the  resources  of  the  countries  bordering 
on  the  Pacific.  A.  R.  Colquhoun's  "  Greater 
America"  is  again  useful  in  this  connection.  For  an 
entertaining  as  well  as  informative  work,  the  student 
should  procure  Harry  Thurston  Peck's  "  Twenty 
Years  of  the  Republic"  (1906),  written  by  a  man  who 
possesses  a  keen  appreciation  of  the  influence  of  the 
personal  factor  in  the  making  of  history.  C.  H. 
Forbes-Lindsay's  " America's  Insular  Possessions" 
(1906)  deals  in  turn  with  each  island  dependency, 
describing  the  people,  customs,  industries,  com 
merce,  etc.,  of  each.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge's  "The 
War  with  Spain"  (1900)  is  both  thoughtful  and 
interesting,  and  is  valuable  as  showing  how  the  war 
impressed  a  statesman  who  was  actively  concerned 
in  its  prosecution.  For  a  similar  reason  reference 
should  be  made  to  R.  A.  Alger's  "The  War  with 
Spain"  (1901),  and  J.  D.  Long's  "The  New  Ameri- 


236    ROMANCE  OF  AMERICAN  EXPANSION 

can  Navy"  (1903),  the  one  written  by  the  Secretary 
of  War  and  the  other  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in 
the  war  administration,  A.  T.  Mahan's  "Lessons 
of  the  War  with  Spain "  (1899)  is  especially  signifi 
cant  because  its  author  was  a  member  of  the  naval 
advisory  board  during  the  war.  The  anti-imperial 
ist  view  is  presented  in  numerous  publications, 
among  which  may  be  mentioned  G.  F.  Hoar's  "No 
Power  to  Conquer  Foreign  Nations  and  Hold  their 
People  in  Subjection  against  their  Will"  (1899),  and 
Edward  Atkinson's  "The  Cost  of  War  and  Warfare 
from  1898  to  1904"  (1904).  W.  F.  Willoughby's 
"Territories  and  Dependencies  of  the  United  States" 
(1905)  gives  an  excellent  account  of  the  measures 
adopted  for  the  administration  of  the  various  insular 
possessions.  For  more  detailed  study  the  reader 
may  consult  the  various  official  documents  cited  in 
the  preceding  chapter. 

A  satisfactory  biography  of  William  McKinley  has 
yet  to  be  written.  Among  existing  works  the  most 
useful,  though  almost  devoid  of  literary  merit,  is  A.  E. 
Coming's  "William  McKinley"  (1907).  Mr.  Cor 
ning  himself  describes  his  work  as  "a  portrayal  of 
William  McKinley  not  so  much  in  a  historical  sense 
as  in  that  of  his  personality."  Murat  Halstead's 
"The  Illustrious  Life  of  William  McKinley  our  Mar- 


HINTS  FOR  FURTHER  READING       237 

tyred  President "  (1901)  is,  as  its  title  indicates,  a 
flamboyant  production.  Charles  H.  Grosvenor's 
"William  McKinley,  His  Life  and  Work"  (1901) 
is  not  a  biography  but  a  compilation,  made  up  of 
newspaper  editorials,  tributes  from  Governors  of 
States,  eulogies  from  other  sources,  and  various  odds 
and  ends.  Far  better  than  any  of  these  is  John 
Hay's  "  Memorial  Address  on  the  Life  and  Character 
of  William  McKinley,"  delivered  before  Congress, 
February  22,  1902.  See  also  the  " Speeches  and 
Addresses  of  William  McKinley  from  March  i,  1897, 
to  May  30,  1900"  (1900). 


INDEX 


Adams,  Charles  Francis,  and  ex 
pansion,  203. 

Adams,  John,  President,  43. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  defends 
Jackson,  74;  urges  Spain  to 
cede  Florida,  75-6;  opposed  to 
Florida  treaty,  83;  elected  Pres 
ident,  83;  opposes  annexation 
Texas,  too;  influence  on  Seward, 
170. 

Aguinaldo,  Emilio,  and  Philip 
pines,  200. 

Alamo,  massacre  at,  98. 

Alaska,  acquisition  first  sug 
gested,  173;  G win's  plan  to  ac 
quire,  174;  early  history,  174-6; 
Seward's  plan  to  acquire,  177- 
8;  negotiations  begun,  178-9; 
and  completed,  180-2;  oppo 
sition  to  acquisition,  182-6; 
treaty  ratified,  185;  Seward 
names,  186;  also  mentioned,  77, 
130,  169,  187;  bibliography, 

233-4- 

Ambrister,  Robert,  captured,  71; 
executed,  72;  also  mentioned, 

75- 

Amelia  Island,  occupation  of,  58. 

Anti-Imperialist  League,  202-3; 
bibliography,  236. 

Arbuthnot,  Alexander,  captured, 
71;  executed,  72;  also  men 
tioned,  75. 


Astoria,  founding  of,  107,  116; 
purchased,  122. 

Atkinson,  Edward,  and  expan 
sion,  203. 

Austin,  Moses,  and  Texas,  81. 

Austin,  Stephen  F.,  plants  first 
American  settlement  Texas,  81; 
imprisoned,  97;  advocates  Tex 
an  War,  98. 

Bancroft,  George,  and  Oregon, 
109^. 

Bear  Flag  Revolt,  151-5. 

Benton,  Thomas  Hart,  opposes 
Florida  treaty,  83,  84;  op 
poses  annexation  Texas,  100; 
urges  occupation  Oregon,  in; 
characteristics,  112-3;  earty 
career,  113-4;  elected  Senator, 
115;  defends  American  claim 
Oregon,  117-21;  promotes  ex 
ploration  Oregon,  125,  144; 
denounces  Webster- Ash  burton 
treaty,  127-8;  wins  Oregon  cam 
paign,  134-5;  quoted,  111-2, 
115,  118,  119,  125-6,  128-9; 
also  mentioned,  137,  170,  171; 
bibliography,  229-30. 

Blaine,  James  G.,  and  McKinley, 

193- 

Blount,  William,  and  Houston,  93. 
Blue   Licks,    battle   of,    21-2;    its 

significance,  23. 


23V 


240 


INDEX 


Boone,  Daniel,  birth  and  early 
training,  5;  removes  to  North 
Carolina,  6;  description  of,  6n; 
in  Braddock's  army,  7;  life  in 
North  Carolina,  6-9;  first  ex 
ploration  Kentucky,  10-3;  first 
Indian  captivity,  n;  opens 
Wilderness  Road,  i$n;  second 
Indian  captivity,  17-8;  in  battle 
Blue  Licks,  19,  21-2;  also  men 
tioned,  3,  4,  14,  25,  28,  29,  31, 
88;  bibliography,  218-9. 

Boone,  Rebecca,  6~7«. 

Boone,  Sarah,  5**. 

Boone,  Squire,  $n. 

Boonesborough,  founding  of,  13; 
center  of  warfare,  14;  besieged, 
18;  sends  aid  Bryan's  Station, 
21 ;  bibliography,  i-$n,  219. 

Bourne,  Edward  G.,  and  Whit 
man  legend,  i23«,  228. 

Boutwell,  George  S.,  and  expan 
sion,  203. 

Bowie,  James,  slain  at  Alamo,  98. 

Breckinridge,  John  C.,  letter  from 
Jefferson  to,  48. 

Bright,  John,  letter  from  Sumner 
to,  182  and  n. 

Bryan's  Station,  siege   of,   19-21. 

Buchanan,  James,  and  Oregon, 
132;  and  California,  148. 

Caldwell,  William,  at  Bryan's  Sta 
tion,  ign. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  and  Oregon, 
129. 

California,  early  American  colon 
ization,  137-8;  why  United 
States  desired,  139-41;  offers  to 
purchase,  141-2;  Fremont  leads 
expedition,  145;  Bear  Flag  Re 


volt  in,  151-5;  American  con 
quest,  154-64;  also  mentioned, 
77,  no,  130,  143,  168,  171;  bib 
liography,  231-2. 

California  Fur  Company,  177, 
178,  179. 

Canal  Zone,  acquisition  of,  210. 

Carlisle,  John  G.,  and  expansion, 
203.  » 

Carmichael,  William,  and  Spain, 
38,  42. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  and  expan 
sion,  203. 

Carson,  Kit,  with  Fremont,  i62w. 

Casa  d'Yrujo,  Marquis,  and 
West  Florida,  55. 

Cass,  Lewis,  and  Oregon,  132  and 

n>  135. 

Castro,  Jose,  intrigues  of,  139; 
defied  by  Fremont,  146-7;  in 
tentions  of,  150-1;  cowardice, 
153;  flight,  154;  joins  Pio  Pico, 
157;  leaves  California,  158. 

Channing,  Edward,  on  Lewis  and 
Clark  expedition,  39-40. 

China,  and  Seward,  172-3. 

Claibome,  W.  C.  C.,  ordered 
seize  West  Florida,  57. 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  capture  of 
northwest  posts,  17,  31;  visits 
Williamsburg,  30. 

Clark,  William,  at  St.  Louis,  115. 

Clay,  Cassius  M.,  letter  from 
Seward  to,  173;  Alaska  negotia 
tions  of,  178-9. 

Clay,  Henry,  opposed  Florida 
treaty,  82,  84;  defeated  by  Polk, 
103;  popularity  of,  191;  quoted, 
83«. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  and  Spain, 
1 88;  and  Hawaii,  197. 


INDEX 


241 


Clinch,  D.  L.,  destroys  Negro 
Fort,  67. 

Constantine,  Archduke,  and 
Alaska,  180. 

Cortelyou,  George  B.,  and  Mc- 
Kinley,  1927*. 

Creek  War,  62,  89. 

Crockett,  David,  slain  at  Alamo, 
98. 

Cuba,  Seward  plans  annexation, 
172;  later  proposals  annex,  187; 
war  in,  188-9;  Spain  relin 
quishes  sovereignty,  199. 

Danish  West  Indies,  annexation 
planned,  172,  187. 

Davis,  C.  K.,  peace  commissioner, 
205,  207. 

Day,  W.  R.,  peace  commissioner, 
205,  207. 

Dewey,  George,  ordered  Philip 
pines,  195;  defeats  Spanish 
fleet,  196;  reinforcements  sent, 
198. 

Diplomacy,  American,  bibliog 
raphy,  213. 

Edmunds,  George  F.,  and  ex 
pansion,  203. 

Expansion,  beginnings,  4,  13-4; 
inevitability,  25,  51,  78,  166; 
influence  sectionalism,  78-9, 129; 
review  of  steps,  166-8;  plans 
that  failed,  172,  187;  motives 
in  recent,  209;  bibliography, 
210-37. 

Fessenden,    W.    P.,    and    Alaska, 

185. 
"Fifty-four     Forty,"     party     cry, 

origin,  i3i-2». 


Filson,  John,  first  historian  Ken 
tucky,  10;  quoted,  nw. 

Finley,  John,  visits  Boone  North 
Carolina,  9;  guides  Boone  Ken 
tucky,  10. 

Florida,  Jefferson  first  proposes 
acquisition,  38;  Spanish  Gov 
ernor  promotes  American  col 
onization,  39;  Napoleon  seeks 
cession,  43;  Jefferson  again 
proposes  acquisition,  45;  why 
United  States  desired,  51-3; 
boundaries  East  and  West, 
53-4;  United  States  declares 
sovereignty  over  West,  55;  Con 
gress  appropriates  for  purchase, 
56;  insurrection  in  West,  57^ 
English  in,  62;  Jackson's  first  in 
vasion,  63-4;  destruction  Negro 
Fort  in,  67;  Jackson's  second 
invasion,  69-74;  Adams  urges 
cession  to  United  States,  75-6; 
cession  accomplished,  76;  terms 
treaty,  77;  also  mentioned,  48, 
61,  78,  80,  81,  82,  107,  108,  no, 
167,  183,  194;  bibliography, 
222-3. 

Floyd,  John,  and  Oregon,  in, 
115-21,  122,  123,  137. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  Minister  to 
France,  34. 

Fremont,  Jessie  Benton,  charac 
teristics,  144. 

Fremont,  John  Charles,  early 
career,  143;  marriage,  144; 
Oregon  explorations,  125,144-5; 
leads  California  expedition,  145; 
defies  Castro,  146-7;  instructions 
sent,  148-9;  defense,  149-50;  in 
cites  Bear  Flag  Revolt,  151;  leads 
revolutionists,  153;  goes  to  Mon- 


242 


INDEX 


terey,  155;  invades  southern 
California,  157;  occupies  Los 
Angeles,  158;  returns  north, 
159;  raises  new  army,  160; 
completes  conquest  California, 
163;  court-martialed,  164;  bibli 
ography,  232-3. 

French  and  Indian  War,  7-8,  42. 

Frye,  W.  P.,  peace  commissioner, 
205,  207. 

Gadsden    Purchase,    164-5;    169. 

Gaines,  Edmund,  letter  from 
Jackson  to,  66. 

Gillespie,  Archibald,  joins  Fre 
mont,  147,  150;  at  Monterey, 
157;  expelled  from  Monterey, 
159;  reinforces  Kearny,  162. 

Girty,  Simon,  at  Bryan's  Station, 
19,  21. 

Gortchakoff,  Prince  Alexandra, 
and  Alaska,  178. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  captures  Vicks- 
burg,  105;  plans  acquisition 
San  Domingo,  191. 

Gray,  George,  peace  commis 
sioner,  205,  207. 

Gray,  Robert,  discovers  the  Co 
lumbia,  107. 

Greene,  F.  V.,  Philippine  memo 
randum  of,  206-7. 

Guam,  captured,   199. 

Gwin,  W.  M.,  and  Alaska,   174. 

Hamilton,   Alexander,   as     expan 
sionist,  26,  49. 
Hannegan,    E.    A.,    and    Oregon, 

132,  135. 
Harrison,  Benjamin,  and  Hawaii, 

197. 
Harrison,  William  H.,  President, 

101. 


Hawaii,  movement  to  annex,  196- 
7;  annexation  effected,  198; 
contrasted  with  Philippines,  201; 
bibliography,  235-6. 

Hay,  John,  and  Philippine  nego 
tiations,  208. 

Hayti,  Seward  plans  annexation, 
172. 

Henry,  Patrick,  and  Revolution,  29. 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  and  expansion, 
203. 

Horseshoe  Bend,  battle  of,  62,  89. 

Houston,  Sam,  boyhood,  88; 
heroism  at  Horseshoe  Bend, 
89-92;  rapid  rise,  93;  plans 
conquest  Texas,  85^,  86-7,  94; 
removes  to  Texas,  96;  promotes 
revolutionary  sentiment,  97; 
commands  Texan  army,  99; 
negotiates  for  annexation,  101-2; 
last  years,  104-5;  quoted,  96^; 
also  mentioned,  98;  bibliog 
raphy,  227-8. 

Hudson's  Bay  Company,  and 
Oregon,  116,  122;  and  Alaska, 
177,  179,  180. 

Independence,  Declaration  of,  30. 
Independence,  War  for,  4,  17,  31. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  early  years,  59; 
characteristics,  59-60;  rapid 
rise,  60;  in  Creek  War,  62;  first 
invasion  Florida,  63-4;  orders 
destruction  Negro  Fort,  66; 
controversy  with  Monroe,  69; 
second  invasion  Florida,  69- 
74;  defended  by  Adams,  74; 
appointed  Governor  Florida, 
76;  elected  President,  83;  tries 
purchase  Texas,  84,  86;  con- 


INDEX 


243 


nives  Houston's  plans,  87; 
Texan  policy  vindicated,  103; 
quoted,  61,  66,  68,  69,  70,  84; 
also  mentioned,  88,  89,  90,  91, 
92,  96,  100,  138,  170,  191,  194; 
bibliography,  223-5. 
Jay,  John,  and  Mississippi  crisis, 

37- 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  first  great  ex 
pansionist,  26;  birth  and  early 
training,  27-8;  begins  practice 
law,  29;  member  House  Bur 
gesses,  29;  and  Declaration  Inde 
pendence,  30;  elected  Governor 
Virginia,  31;  as  a  national 
ist,  32-3;  draws  up  first  North- 
West  Ordinance,  33;  becomes 
interested  expansion,  34;  suc 
ceeds  Franklin,  34;  plans  Led- 
yard  exploration,  35-6;  enters 
Washington's  Cabinet,  37;  and 
Mississippi  crisis,  38;  promotes 
Michaux  exploration,  39-40; 
elected  President,  43;  alarmed 
by  Napoleon's  designs,  44; 
instructs  Livingston,  45;  learns 
of  Louisiana  Purchase,  47; 
troubled  by  Constitutional 
scruples,  48;  secures  ratifica 
tion  treaty,  49;  quoted,  31,  35, 
36,  37>  38,  39,  40,  44,  45,  46,  48, 
171;  also  mentioned,  170;  bib 
liography,  221-2. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  President,  172, 
178. 

Jones,  Thomas  Ap  Catesby,  in 
California,  140. 

Jordan,  David  Starr,  and  ex 
pansion,  203. 

Kearny,    Stephen    W.,    conquers 


New  Mexico,  142;  ordered  in 
vade  California,  149;  fights 
battle  of  San  Pascual,  162-3; 
occupies  Los  Angeles,  163; 
quarrels  with  Stockton,  164. 
Kelley,  Hal,  and  Oregon,  122. 

Larkin,  T.  O.,  in  California,  148. 

La  Salle,  explorations  of,  42. 

Ledyard,  John,  American  ex 
plorer,  35. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  and  Revo 
lution,  29. 

Lester,  C.  Edwards,  quoted,  89- 
92. 

Lewis  and  Clark  Expedition,  Ed 
ward  Channing  on,  39-40; 
strengthens  American  claim 
Oregon,  107. 

Lewis,  W.  B.,  letter  from  Jack 
son  to,  84. 

Linn,  Lewis  F.,  and  Oregon,  in, 
124,  128,  129,  130. 

Livingston,  Robert  R.,  appointed 
Minister  to  France,  44;  in 
structed  treat  for  purchase 
Florida  and  New  Orleans,  45; 
negotiates  purchase  Louisiana, 

47- 

Long,  James,  and  Texas,  80. 

Long,  John  D.,  and  Spanish- 
American  War,  204. 

Los  Angeles,  capture  of,  158. 

Louisiana,  early  history,  42;  Na 
poleon  obtains,  43;  Napoleon 
determines  to  sell,  46;  United 
States  purchases,  47;  Congress 
ratifies  treaty,  49;  also  men 
tioned,  i,  24,  25,  29,  34,  40,  51, 
53,  54,  55,  58,  77,  80,  107,  166, 
183,  184;  bibliography,  218-21. 


244 


INDEX 


Madison,  James,  letter  from  Jef 
ferson  to,  36;  dispute  with 
Marquis  Casa  d'Yrujo,  55; 
elected  President,  57;  orders 
occupation  West  Florida,  57; 
reasons  for  ordering  occupa 
tion,  58;  also  mentioned,  61. 

Maine,  destruction  battleship,  189, 
190,  191. 

Marcy,  W.  L.,  and  Hawaii,  196. 

Marshall,  W.  I.,  and  Whitman 
legend,  123^,  228. 

Mayo,  Robert,  on  Houston's 
Texas  plans,  87. 

McKeever,  Isaac,  and  capture  St. 
Mark's,  71. 

McKinley,  William,  characteris 
tics,  190-1;  early  career,  192- 
3;  elected  President,  194;  war 
message,  195;  approves  annex 
ation  Hawaii,  198;  denounced 
by  anti-imperialists,  203;  Phil 
ippine  policy,  204-9;  supported 
by  public  opinion,  209;  bibliog 
raphy,  236-7. 

Mexican  War,  104,  106,  136-7, 
142,  148,  151-65;  bibliography, 
230-1. 

Michaux,  Andre",  French  explorer, 
39-40. 

Middle  West,  early  settlement,  4, 
14-7,  34,  37,  41;  bibliography, 
213-8. 

Miles,  Nelson  A.,  in  Porto  Rico, 
199. 

Mims,  Fort,  massacre  at,  62,  89. 

Missouri  Compromise,  78,  79. 

Mobile  Act,  organizing  West  Flor 
ida,  55. 

Monroe,  James,  letter  from  Jef 
ferson  to,  44;  negotiates  pur 


chase  Louisiana,  47;  seeks 
purchase  Florida,  55;  elected 
President,  68;  controversy  with 
Jackson,  69. 

Monterey,  capture  of,  154;  loss 
of,  159. 

Morrill,  J.  S.,  and  Alaska, 
185- 

Napoleon,  plans  French  aggran 
dizement  America,  42-3;  secures 
retrocession  Louisiana,  43;  de 
termines  to  sell  Louisiana,  46; 
also  mentioned,  26,  44,  49,  51, 

55,  184- 
Nicholls,  Edward,  in  Florida,  65, 

75- 

Nolan,  Philip,  and  Texas,  80. 

Nootka  Sound  Convention,  107, 
1 08. 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  and  ex 
pansion,  203. 

Oregon,  early  claimants  to,  107; 
popular  ignorance  concerning, 
1 08  and  n;  occupation  urged, 
in,  116-21;  American  coloni 
zation  begins,  122-4;  the  "great 
migration"  to,  125-6;  Webster- 
Ashburton  treaty  and,  126-8; 
renewal  of  struggle  for,  129-31; 
negotiations  with  Great  Britain, 
132;  compromise  on,  133-4; 
treaty  ratified,  135;  also  men 
tioned,  77,  106,  no,  147,  168, 
I7i>  J73J  bibliography.  228-9. 

Pakenham,  Sir  Richard,  and  Ore 
gon,  132. 

Parkhurst,  Rev.  C.  H.,  and  ex 
pansion,  203. 


INDEX 


.245 


Parma,  Duke  of,  and  Louisiana, 
42. 

Philippines,  Dewey  ordered  to, 
195-6;  troops  sent  to,  198; 
native  insurrection  in,  200; 
problem  presented  by,  201, 
opposition  to  acquisition,  202-3; 
McKinley  and,  204-9;  public 
opinion  upholds  acquisition, 
209;  bibliography,  235-6. 

Pico,  Jesus,  pardoned  by  Fre 
mont,  161. 

Pico,  Pio,  Governor  of  California, 

139,  153,  157,  158. 

Pioneers,  life  and  characteristics 
of  early  western,  14-7;  in  Mis 
sissippi  Valley,  34,  37,  41;  in 
Texas,  81-2,  95-9;  in  Oregon, 
123-6;  in  California,  137-9, 
150-64. 

Poinsett,  Joel  R.,  Minister  to 
Mexico,  83,  84;  aids  Fremont, 

143- 

Polk,  James  K.,  elected  President, 
103;  and  Oregon,  131-5;  and 
California,  139. 

Pope,  John,  Governor  of  Arkan 
sas,  86w. 

Porto  Rico,  conquest  of,  199. 


Randolph,  Thomas  Mann,  letter 
from  Jefferson  to,  44. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  peace  commis 
sioner,  205,  207. 

Rhea,  J.,  and  Monroe- Jackson 
controversy,  69. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  and  Cuba, 
199. 

Russian  Fur  Company,  174,  177, 
179,  1 80. 


Samoan  Islands,  acquisition  of, 
210;  bibliography,  235. 

Sampson,  W.  T.,  and  Spanish- 
American  War,  199. 

San  Domingo,  plan  to  annex,  172, 
189. 

San  Ildefonso,  treaty  of,  43. 

San  Jacinto,  battle  of,  99,  101. 

San  Pascual,  battle  of,  152,  162-3. 

Santa  Anna,  A.  L.  de,  and  Texan 
War,  98,  99. 

Schley,  W.  S.,  and  Spanish-Amer 
ican  War,  199. 

Schouler,  James,  on  Monroe- 
Jackson  controversy,  69^. 

Schurz,  Carl,  and  expansion,  203. 

Seward,  William  Henry,  as  an 
expansionist,  169-73;  early 
years,  170;  becomes  interested 
in  Alaska,  174;  plans  its 
acquisition,  177-8;  begins 
negotiations,  178-9;  completes 
negotiations,  180-2;  fears 
treaty  will  fail,  183;  selects 
name  of  Alaska,  186;  quoted, 
170,  171,  173;  bibliography, 

233-5- 

Seymour,  Sir  George  F.,  at  Mon 
terey,  154,  155. 

Sherman,  John,  and  McKinley, 
193;  and  expansion,  203. 

Slidell,  John,  Mexican  negotia 
tions  of,  141-2. 

Sloat,  J.  D.,  ordered  occupy  Cal 
ifornia  ports,  149,  150;  seizes 
Monterey,  154;  angered  at  Fre 
mont,  156;  sails  for  home,  157. 

Sonoma,  capture  of,  151-2. 

Spanish-American  War,  causes, 
188-9;  progress,  195-6,  199; 
peace  protocol  signed,  199;  peace 


246 


INDEX 


negotiations,  205-8;  peace  treaty 
ratified,  210;  bibliography,  235- 
6. 

Stockton,  R.  F.,  invades  southern 
California,  157;  occupies  Los 
Angeles,  158;  again  takes  field, 
1 60;  reinforces  Kearny,  163; 
quarrels  with  Kearny,  164. 

Stoeckel,  Edward  de,  and  Alaska, 
178-81. 

Stuart,  Archibald,  letter  from 
Jefferson  to,  34-5. 

Stuart,  John,  captured,  n;  slain, 
12. 

Sumner,  Charles,  and  Alaska, 
182-5. 

Sutter,  John  A.,  California  pio 
neer,  138-9,  145. 

Texas,  how  sectionalism  affected 
annexation,  79;  early  adven 
turers,  80;  Mexico  promotes 
American  colonization,  81;  Aus 
tin  settles,  81;  rapid  American 
ization,  82;  American  offers  to 
purchase,  83-4;  beginnings  of 
sectional  opposition  to  annex 
ation,  85;  Houston's  plans  to 
win,  85«,  86-7,  94;  Mexico 
opposes  further  Americaniza 
tion,  95;  war  for  independence, 
98-9;  overtures  for  annexation 
fail,  1 01;  outlook  brightens,  101- 
2;  annexation  treaty  defeated, 
103;  annexation  effected,  104, 
1 06;  in  Civil  War,  104-5;  also 
mentioned,  77,  107,  no,  129, 


131,  132,  136,  137,  139,  140, 
141,  167,  171;  bibliography, 
225-7. 

Thwaites,  R.  G.,  description  Dan 
iel  and-  Rebecca  Boone,  6~7«. 

Transylvania  Company,  i^n. 

Travis,  William  B.,  slain  at  Alamo, 
98. 

Tyler,  John,  favors  annexation 
Texas,  101-2;  and  Whitman 
legend,  123^;  and  Webster- 
Ashburton  treaty,  127;  and  Ore 
gon,  130-1;  and  California,  140. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  President, 
101,  143. 

Walpole,  Frederick,  on  Bear  Flag 
revolutionists,  155-6. 

Washburn,  C.  C.,  and  Alaska, 
186. 

Washington,  George,  in  Brad- 
dock's  army,  7;  and  Revolution, 
29;  also  mentioned,  37,  39. 

Webster- Ashburton  treaty,  1 26, 
129. 

Webster,  Daniel,  and  Whitman 
legend,  123^. 

Whitman,  Marcus,  legend  of,  123 
and  n;  bibliography,  228. 

Wilderness  Road,  opening  of, 
i3«;  also  mentioned,  3,  4;  bibli 
ography,  i3»,  219. 

Woodford,  S.  L.,  Minister  to 
Spain,  194-5- 

Wyeth,  Nathaniel,  and  Oregon, 
122. 


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